Psychosocial aspects of insomnia

Abstract

The relationship between insomnia and psychosocial factors is focused only in few epidemiological studies. Furthermore, most of them do not control for the mutual interdependencies of variables like age, sex, psychosocial distress and somatic or psychiatric disorders in their relation to insomnia. From a sample of general practice attendants, 516 patients with different grades of insomnia diagnosed according to DSM criteria were selected. Logistic regression analysis revealed seven psychosocial factors with independent predictive value for the occurrence of insomnia: increased age, conflicts with relatives, professional overload, housekeeping overload, illness of relatives, social and psychiatric status. Based on such a risk profile, in more than 2/3 of the cases the presence of insomnia can be predicted correctly. Consequences for diagnostic training and multimodal treatment programs are suggested.

Acculturation and Sleep among a Multiethnic Sample of Women: The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN)

“…In prior studies focusing on the social determinants of sleep patterns, sociodemographic factors (such as unemployment and low education) that are associated with increased psychosocial stress are adversely associated with both high-risk sleep durations and low-quality sleep in both children and adults. 1,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Because immigrant populations may experience greater levels of psychosocial stress than others, one might hypothesize that foreign-born immigrants are likely to be vulnerable to sleep difficulties as they adapt to life in the United States. However, given the variety of literature on better health behaviors and health outcomes among immigrants, we expected to find that sleep quality will be comparatively better among the foreignborn immigrants, even after accounting for differences in sociodemographic and health factors.…”

Psychosocial factors affecting sleep misperception in middle-aged community-dwelling adults

“…Insomnia disorder is significantly affected by psychosocial factors. Therefore, as a type of insomnia disorder, sleep misperception can also be affected by psychosocial factors [ 63 ]. The positive effects of using a psychological approach to treat insomnia have been demonstrated in previous studies [ 64 – 66 ].…”