Disparity by the sex difference in the efficacy of self-help sleep education in community dwelling elderly people

Abstract 

Background

Quality of sleep in later life is a major concern, and sleep hygiene advice is often the first form of intervention used to treat sleep problem. However, with regard to sleep education, the efficacy in gender-specific medicine is not well known.

Objectives

We investigated whether the efficacy of self-help sleep educational program has gender disparity in community dwelling elderly people.

Methods

This evaluation was a part of a larger developmental study, self-help sleep educational program, conducted in community dwelling people, as the health promotion in Japan. We analyzed 106 adults, aged 60 years and over, recruited through community groups to participate in a study of self-help sleep educational program. At the baseline, we evaluated the sleep quality and the quality of life, followed by the education especially about sleep hygiene, using original textbook. Outcome measures were obtained as follow-up assessment with in a 2- to 4-week interval from baseline.

Results

As a result of two-way repeated measures analysis of variance, we found the significant main effect of self-help sleep educational program for the global score of PSQI (P < 0.01). However, we found neither the main effect of sex (P = 0.43) nor the group × time interaction (P = 0.34). Moreover, there was no significant sex difference on sleep, effect size of female group was relatively larger than male's (Cohen's d; −0.26 vs −0.19).

Conclusions

In this study, there was the significant effect for sleep education before and after program in community dwelling elderly people, regard less of the sex difference.

Keywords:  Sleep hygiene , Gender-specific medicine , Sleep education , Aging , Cognitive-behavioral therapy

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