Sleep quality and associated factors in Iranian inflammatory bowel disease patients

BACKGROUND: Sleep is essential in maintaining health and quality of life. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients suffer from poor sleep quality. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of sleep disturbances in Iranian IBD patients as well as the variables which can be attributed to the quality of sleep in IBD patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy-one patients filled in Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire and a sociodemographic questionnaire. Disease activity was assessed by Crohn's Disease (CD) Activity Index and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) Activity Index. Regression analysis was used to identify the association between sociodemographic and disease characteristics with sleep quality. RESULTS: We found that 32.4% of all patients, 23.1% of patients with “in remission to mild” disease, and 66.7% of patients with “moderate” disease, had poor sleep quality. CD patients were more likely to have poor sleep quality comparing UC ones in crude (odds ratio [OR] =2.14; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14–4.04) and adjusted (OR = 6.19; 95% CI 1.13, 34.07) models. Patients with good quality of sleep had lower systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure (P = 0.09 and 0.035 respectively). CONCLUSION: Notable percentage of IBD patients suffer from poor sleep quality even in the remission phase. Treatment of sleep disturbances, especially in CD patients, is recommended in the IBD patient-care program.