Assessment of Sleep and Quality of Life Among Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease Patients, New Delhi, India

Abstract

Objective: To assess sleep and quality of life among chronic obstructive airway disease patients.

Materials and Methods: Patients with primary, mild-to-moderate, stable chronic obstructive airways disease [asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)] on treatment visiting outpatient department of a government hospital, New Dehi, India were interviewed using a predesigned, pretested, semi-structure schedule. The patients were then administered standardized Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), St. George’s respiratory questionnaire (SGRQ), and Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) questionnaires. Patients with any other known chronic disease, chest deformity, or long-term oxygen therapy were excluded. Using purposive sampling frame, 120 chest patients (asthma and COPD) and in addition, 30 ambulatory patients without having any underlying chronic respiratory diseases were also recruited for comparison purpose.

Results: Mean age was 50.2 years. Mean duration of sleep during night was 5.40 h [±1.6; 95% confidence interval (CI)=4.98–5.82] for patients with COPD; 5.53 h (±1.6; 95% CI=5.11–5.95) for patients with asthma, and 6.97 h (±1.0; 95% CI=6.57–7.36) for control patients (P < 0.001). It was noticed that 63.3% of control patients had at least 6 h of night sleep in comparison to 23.3% of chest patients (P < 0.01). Good PSQI score (up to 5 points) was found in 86.6% of control patients while it was found only in 35.0% of chest patients (P < 0.01); mean PSQI score among asthma was 8.08, 8.06 (COPD), and 3.46 among control patients, respectively. All the control patients (100%) reported good score for quality of life while chest patients reported good score for SGRQ (activity, impact, and symptoms) as 64.1, 83.3, and 82.5%, respectively (P < 0.01). Based on ESS, none of the patients complained of daytime sleepiness.

To conclude, poor sleep was noticed in our study sample.

Keywords: Asthma, Chest, Chronic Respiratory Diseases, COPD, ESS, MMSE, PSQI, Quality of Life, SGRQ, Sleep Quality, Smoking, Tobacco, India