A survey the prevalence of sleep disorders and their management in the elderly in Jahrom City, 2008

Introduction: One of the basic needs of human is sleep. Research has shown that poor quality of sleep is the 3rd problem in the elderly people, being one of their most common complaints and reason to refer to doctors. The objective of this survey is to study the frequency of sleep disorder and how to deal with it. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 360 people aged 60 or older, using a self-made structured questionnaire and interview. The data entered into SPSS, version 11.5. Descriptive and analytical statistics such as Chi square and Fisher exact tests were used to analyze the data. Results: In this survey, the mean age of the subjects was 67.7±7.33 70.3% suffered sleep disorder and 81.81% of them had primary insomnia. Sleep disorder showed a significant relationship whit marital status, gender, residency, education and employment. In this survey, 94.5% (239 men) that had sleep disorder used at least one of the non- pharmacological methods and7.5 percent of them used pharmacological methods to cope with sleep disorders. Conclusion: Considering the fact that most of the elderly people used one of the non-pharmacological methods to cope with sleep disorders but still the prevalence of sleep disorders is high, we can conclude that it can be the result of their inappropriate use. Therefore, we recommend that the health care staff should focus on educating the elderly people on how to use the non- pharmacological methods.