The association between insomnia and perceived health status

Abstract

Introduction: Impaired sleep can have a significant impact on perceived health status. The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between perceived health status and sleep quality, total sleep time, and insomnia. Materials and methods: A survey was conducted among Dutch university students. General health and perceived immune status were scored on a scale ranging from 0 (very poor) to 10 (excellent). Sleep parameters were collected with the insomnia subscale of the SLEEP-50 questionnaire. Total sleep time (TST) was recorded, and sleep quality was scored on a scale ranging from 0 (very poor) to 10 (excellent). Non-parametric correlations (Spearman)were used to examine the association between perceived heath and immune status and the sleep parameters. Results: N = 509 subjects completed the survey (N = 143 men, and N = 366 women). They were on average 20.8 (2.6) years old and reported a TST of 7.7 (0.9) hours. Mean (SD) scores were 14.6 (4.3) for insomnia, 7.3 (1.2) for sleep quality, 7.7 (1.0) for general health, and 7.8 (1.3) for perceived immune status. Perceived general health correlated significantly with scores for insomnia (r = -0.228, p = 0.0001) and sleep quality (r = 0.235, p = 0.0001), but not with TST (r = 0.058, p = 0.196). Similarly, perceived immune status correlated significantly with scores for insomnia (r = -0.193, p = 0.0001) and sleep quality (r = 0.234, p = 0.0001), but not with TST (r = 0.051, p = 0.254). A significant correlation was found between perceived health status and immune functioning (r = 0.704, p = 0.0001). Insomnia scores were highly correlated to sleep quality (r =-0.697, p = 0.0001) and to a lesser extent with TST (r = -0.218, p = 0.0001). Overall, the observed associations were stronger in men when compared with women. Conclusion: Whereas insomnia and sleep quality were significantly related to perceived general health and immune status, this relationship was not found for total sleep time.