Examining the validity of sleep diaries using a patient‐caregiver dyadic model of dementia
Anna E Youngkin, Carol A Manning, Mark S Quigg- Psychiatry and Mental health
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
- Geriatrics and Gerontology
- Neurology (clinical)
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Health Policy
- Epidemiology
Abstract
Background
Developing successful sleep interventions for both people with dementia (PWD) and their caregivers (CGS) is critical to alleviate a strong difficulty associated with dementia. In the majority of current studies, sleep diaries are used to quantify the sleep quality of participants. However, whether or not sleep diaries can accurately describe sleep statistics is unclear and the completion of daily diaries can be tedious for caregivers, leading to gaps and inaccuracies in data. The current study aimed to compare sleep diaries of both patients and caregivers with gold standard diagnostic polysomnography to determine the validity of sleep diaries for future research methodology.
Method
Participants: Six caregiver‐patient dyads. Polysomnography (PSG): recorded and scored for 1 night for each dyad member separately. Sleep Diaries (SDs): logged over the course of 14 days by the primary caregiver on behalf of themselves and their care recipient. Variables: Total sleep time (TST), Sleep onset latency (SOL) and number of awakenings.
Result
Of the three variables assessed, TST was the only measure with meaningful correlations between SDs and PSG (CG r = 0.4315, PWD r = 0.7645). While those who reported greater sleep time in SDs also tended to have higher TST on PSG reports, SDs consistently overestimated the amount of sleep both PWD and CGS received compared to their sleep studies. SOL was inconsistent across SDs, with no clear pattern correlating SDs to PSG reports. However, data from both methods indicate significantly increased SOL in CGS compared to PWD (PSG p = 0.015, SDs p = 0.044). SDs additionally grossly underestimate the number of awakenings in both CGS and PWD.
Conclusion
Sleep diaries can be helpful tools for identifying broad trends or differences between groups, however, our data suggest that they should not be used as surrogate markers for quantitative sleep statistics. Studies aiming to study sleep or sleep interventions should not rely on subjective sleep measurements provided by SDs alone, but should consider the addition of PSG in order to best understand the sleep architecture of their participants.