Napping in the elderly and its association with night sleep and psychological status

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of daytime napping and its psychic, night sleep, and functional correlates in Italian community-dwelling elderly persons. A cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling elderly subjects was conducted with a multidimensional quality-of-life questionnaire administered by interviewers at the subjects' own homes. Participants were 223 community-dwelling elderly subjects, aged 75 and over, with a Mini-Mental State Examination score of 18 or more, living in Brescia, Italy. Statistical analysis was performed with logistic regression for estimates of the bivariate and multivariate associations of continuous independent variables with a dichotomous dependent variable (napping). Beta coefficients with 95% and 99% confidence interval (CI), and p values at Wald statistics, were computed. Napping once or more per week was reported by 23.8% of the sample. Napping was found to be independently and positively associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms (beta = .86, 95% CI 0.25 to 1.47, p = .005) and with the night sleep symptom of not feeling rested in the morning (beta = .17, 95% CI 0.00 to 0.35, p = .048). No association was found with instrumental activities of daily living (beta = .18, 95% CI -0.04 to 0.40, p = .113). It is concluded that napping in the elderly is partly related to personality characteristics and partly a consequence of night sleep disturbance.