Time to Take Sleeping Pills and Subjective Satisfaction among Cancer Patients

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the influence of the time to take hypnotics and daytime activity on patient satisfaction with sleeping pills. METHODS: Ninety-six cancer patients who were currently taking benzodiazepine or z-drug as hypnotics were grouped into satisfied and dissatisfied groups. The subjects’ symptoms, time to take sleeping pills, bedtime, sleep onset time, wake up time, and time in bed within 24 hours (TIB/d) were obtained. RESULTS: The satisfied group had significantly late sleeping pill ingestion time (p=0.04); significantly early wake up time (p=0.01); and significantly shorter sleep latency, TIB/d, duration from the administration of pills to sleep onset, and duration from the administration of pills to wake up time (PTW). Logistic regression analysis revealed that the significant predictors of patient satisfaction to hypnotics were less severity of insomnia [odds ratio (OR)=0.91] and the time variables, including late sleeping pill administration time (OR=1.53) and early wake up time (OR=0.57). Among the duration variables, short PTW (OR=0.30) and short TIB/d (OR=0.64) were significantly related with the satisfaction to hypnotics. CONCLUSION: Reducing the duration from the administration of hypnotics to wake up time and TIB/d can influence the satisfaction to sleeping pills.