Yazawa A, Shiba K, Okuzono SS, Hikichi H, Kawachi I. Bidirectional associations between post-traumatic stress symptoms and sleep quality among older survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
Sleep 2023;
46:zsad106. [PMID:
37029901 PMCID:
PMC10465083 DOI:
10.1093/sleep/zsad106]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2023] [Revised: 03/25/2023] [Indexed: 04/09/2023] Open
Abstract
STUDY OBJECTIVES
We sought to examine the bidirectional associations between post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and sleep quality in a sample of older disaster survivors.
METHODS
We used 4 waves (2010, 2013, 2016, and 2020) of the Iwanuma Study, which included pre-disaster information and 9 years of follow-up data among older survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Poisson regression analysis was used to examine the bidirectional associations between sleep problems and PTSS.
RESULTS
Individuals reporting sleep problems before the disaster were more likely to develop PTSS after exposure to disaster trauma, while there was no effect modification, i.e. prevalence ratio for sleep problems did not differ by the magnitude of disaster damages. Individuals reporting sleep problems after the disaster were less likely to recover from PTSS, and more likely to develop the delayed onset of PTSS 5 years after the disaster. While individuals who recovered from PTSS 9 years after the disaster were still at slightly higher risk of having sleep problems compared to those who never had PTSS, none of the sleeping problems were found to be significantly prevalent after the Bonferroni correction.
CONCLUSIONS
Pre-disaster sleep problems predicted PTSS onset independently of experiences of disaster trauma. The association between PTSS and sleep problems was bidirectional. Intervening to mitigate lingering sleep problems may benefit the recovery of disaster survivors from post-traumatic symptoms.
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