Sleep complaints in the Brazilian population: Impact of socioeconomic factors

National surveys are relevant for the study of sleep epidemiology since they can provide specific data about sleep in large dimension with important implications for the health system. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of sleep complaints among the Brazilian population using a randomized cluster sample according to region and socioeconomic class. For this, a 3-stage sampling technique was used to randomly select Brazilian subjects of both genders older than 16 years. A total of 2017 subjects, from 132 different cities, were selected to estimate prevalence in the Brazilian population with a sampling error of ±2%. Questions about sleep complaints were administered face-to-face by Instituto Datafolha interviewers on April 10 and 16, 2012. Data were expanded using a weighted variable. The results showed that 76% of the study population suffers from at least 1 sleep complaint, indicating that approximately 108 million Brazilians may be affected by sleep disorders. On average, each subject had 1.9 sleep problems with the most common complaints being light and insufficient sleep, snoring, moving a lot during sleep, and insomnia, which usually occurred more than 3 times per week. Low income was associated with higher number of sleep complaints only in Northeast and Southeast regions. In conclusion, this study showed a high prevalence of sleep complaints in a sample of the Brazilian population, suggesting that sleep disorders may be markedly frequent in the Brazilian population with a possible correlation with the socioeconomic situation of the interviewed subjects.