Study, Apr/19: Social support and sleep quality in older benzodiazepine users

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30977682

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

Benzodiazepines (BZD) are often prescribed to address sleep difficulties but many BZD users report a poor quality of sleep. Although social support was found to be associated with quality of sleep in a recent meta-analysis, this relationship was never studied in older BZD users. This study thus aims to examine how social support is associated with quality of sleep in older BZD users.

METHOD:

Seventy-two older adults (age 60-85) using BZD were recruited. Data was collected during the pre-test of the ''PASSE-60+; Support program for a successful withdrawal, NCT02281175'' study. Quality of sleep was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), while social support was evaluated with the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ-6).

RESULTS:

When examining the various dimensions of self-reported sleep quality as a whole, we found no significant association with social support, while controlling for daily BZD dose, anxiety and depression. However, we found a significant association between self-reported diurnal dysfunctions (e.g., daytime sleepiness) and satisfaction with social support.