Sleep quality features and their association with mood symptoms and cognitive factors in a non-clinical sample of older Brazilian adults.

AIM: There is strong interest in sleep disorders in the elderly, but there are gaps in identifying how multiple factors affect sleep quality in this population. We aimed to assess sleep quality and its relationship to mood, general cognition, and sociodemographic factors in a sample of cognitively active older adults. METHODS: We assessed 105 non-clinical older adults (mean age ± SD: 69.64 ± 0.66 years) based on a sociodemographic profile questionnaire, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory II, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Separate analyses were conducted, controlled by sleep quality and daytime sleepiness, to understand how variables were associated. RESULTS: About 46.7% of individuals had significantly poor sleep quality. Univariate analysis showed that non-workers had a lower risk of impaired sleep quality (prevalence ratio (PR) = 0.67; P = 0.044). However, there was an increased risk of poor sleep quality in those experiencing depressive symptoms (PR = 1.78; P < 0.001) and anxiety symptoms (PR = 1.98; P < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, the language component of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (PR = 0.80; P = 0.011) was associated with a lower risk of poor sleep quality, and anxiety symptoms (PR = 1.99; P < 0.001) remained significantly associated with a higher risk of poor sleep quality. No significant difference was observed in variables related to daytime sleepiness. CONCLUSION: We found that overall quality of sleep potentially relates to mood, cognition, and sociodemographic factors. Further studies using multifactorial approaches to sleep investigation are required.

Psychometric properties of the complete version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-OLD): reduced response scale.

This study sought to compare evidence of the factorial validity of the adapted version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-OLD) scale (three response options) with the original version of the scale. We included two populations of individuals age 60 years or older from northeast Brazil. The majority of participants were women who had an elementary-level education. The first population comprised 335 elderly persons who completed the original version of the scale, and the second was composed by 265 elderly persons who completed the shortened scale. Results indicated better adjusting on the reduced scale and showed items with lower error probability in assessment of elderly persons with lower quality of life.