Insomnia in Schizophrenia Patients: Prevalence and Quality of Life

Abstract

Sleep disorders are often not regarded as an important health problem, despite their impact on heath. Insomnia is the most frequent sleep disorder in mental health. The aim is to quantify the prevalence of insomnia in a population with schizophrenic disorder and assess its influence on quality of life. This is a descriptive, analytical and cross-sectional study conducted in a sample of 267 schizophrenic patients over 18 years of age using consecutive non-probabilistic sampling. The variables of interest were collected by means of the "Cuestionario Oviedo de Sueño," "Insomnia Severity Index" and EuqoQol-5D. The estimation of insomnia in our schizophrenic population according to the International Classification of Disease (ICD-10) criteria was 23.2%. The likelihood of insomnia when there are problems in the quality of life is significant in all its dimensions: mobility OR: 3.54 (95% CI 1.88– 6.65), self-care OR: 2.69 (95% CI 1.36–5.32), usual activities OR: 3.56 (95% CI 1.97–6.44), pain/discomfort OR: 4.29 (95% CI 2.37–7.74) and anxiety/depression OR: 3.01 (95% CI 1.61–5.65). The prevalence of insomnia fluctuates depending on the diagnostic criteria; however, the schizophrenic population shows high prevalence in some clinical characteristics. People with insomnia have a lower quality of life.

Do sleep disturbances contribute to cognitive impairments in schizophrenia spectrum and bipolar disorders?

“…Notably, this study employed diagnostic assessment, thus stricter criteria, which might suggest that our rates should have been even higher. However, the frequency of our findings is somewhat higher than other studies investigating insomnia symptoms in schizophrenia samples (Hou et al, 2017), yet similar to other (Batalla-Martin et al, 2020) and also similar to studies using stricter insomnia criteria in studies of bipolar disorder samples (Harvey, Schmidt, Scarna, Semler, & Goodwin, 2005;Kanady, Soehnera, & Harvey, 2015;Ng et al, 2015).…”

Sleep Disturbances in Patients with Persistent Delusions: Prevalence, Clinical Associations, and Therapeutic Strategies

“…One study of first episode psychosis patients ( n = 280) found that 22.6% suffered from clinical insomnia, especially prominent in individuals who smoked, used alcohol, and were not on antipsychotic treatment [ 43 ]. A very similar prevalence (23.2%) has been reported among medicated persons with schizophrenia [ 38 ]. Reeve et al [ 44 ], on the other hand, found that the rate of insomnia reached 50% in 60 patients with early psychosis (mostly schizophrenia).…”

“…Findings from schizophrenia are very relevant to delusional disorders because of the considerable overlap between the two disorders. In schizophrenia, sleep quality has been correlated with the degree of paranoid ideation [ 36 ], with hostility and violence [ 37 ], with poor quality of life [ 38 , 39 ], with memory functions [ 40 ], with physical activity [ 41 ], and with dopamine signaling [ 42 ]. These correlations may well also apply to DD.…”

Looking within: Interoceptive sensibility in young adults with psychotic‐like experiences

“…Among mental disorders, psychosis, characterized by clinical, cognitive, and functional impairment, represents one of the most studied. A vast body of literature has described disrupted sleep (e.g., Batalla-Martín et al, 2020;Ong et al, 2020), aberrant sense of self (e.g., Keromnes et al, 2018;Moe & Docherty, 2014;Parnas & Handest, 2003), and impaired social cognition (Green et al, 2015;Vaskinn & Horan, 2020) as core features of psychosis. These deficits, along with anomalous bodily experiences (Nyboe et al, 2016;Stanghellini et al, 2012), and neuroanatomical and functional abnormalities within the insular cortex (Ebisch et al, 2013;Ebisch et al, 2014;Karrer et al, 2019), provide indirect evidence to suggest that interoception may be impaired in those with psychosis.…”