Determine the comorbidity of insomnia with medical problems.
Cross-sectional and retrospective.
Community-based population of 772 men and women, aged 20 to 98 years old.
Self-report measures of sleep, health, depression, and anxiety.
People with chronic insomnia reported more of the following than did people without
insomnia: heart disease (21.9% vs 9.5%), high blood pressure (43.1% vs 18.7%), neurologic
disease (7.3% vs 1.2%), breathing problems (24.8% vs 5.7%), urinary problems (19.7%
vs 9.5%), chronic pain (50.4% vs 18.2%), and gastrointestinal problems (33.6% vs 9.2%).
Conversely, people with the following medical problems reported more chronic insomnia
than did those without those medical problems: heart disease (44.1% vs 22.8%), cancer
(41.4% vs 24.6%), high blood pressure (44.0% vs 19.3%), neurologic disease (66.7%
vs 24.3%), breathing problems (59.6% vs 21.4%), urinary problems (41.5% vs 23.3%),
chronic pain (48.6% vs 17.2%), and gastrointestinal problems (55.4% vs 20.0%). When
all medical problems were considered together, only patients with high blood pressure,
breathing problems, urinary problems, chronic pain, and gastrointestinal problems
continued to have statistically higher levels of insomnia than those without these
medical disorders.
This study demonstrates significant overlap between insomnia and multiple medical
problems. Some research has shown it is possible to treat insomnia that is comorbid
with select psychiatric (depression) and medical (eg, pain and cancer) disorders,
which in turn increases the quality of life and functioning of these patients. The
efficacy of treating insomnia in many of the above comorbid disorders has not been
tested, indicating a need for future treatment research.