TITLE:
Alternating sleeping arrangements as a coping strategy for snorers and their bed partners—A prospective study
AUTHORS:
Stefan Seidel, Christian Wöber, Sabine Salhofer-Polanyi, Doris Lieba-Samal, Eleonore Pablik, Josef Zeitlhoferq, Gerhard Klösch
KEYWORDS:
Snoring; Sleep Apnea; Bed Partners; Sleeping Arrangement; Actigraphy
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.5 No.8B,
August
12,
2013
ABSTRACT: Background: Despite overwhelming evidence for gender differences in
sleep quality as well as gender-specific changes of sleep parameters with
respect to habitual sleeping arrangements, studies on snorers and their bed
partners have ignored the influence of individual quality of sleep as a
potential co-factor. Objective: The objective of this study was to record subjective
and objective sleep parameters and to analyze the effects of alternating of
sleeping arrangements in snorers and their bed partners. Methods: Habitual
snorers and their bed partners were recruited via newspaper articles not
stating the exact purpose of the study. Both filled out a 90-day sleep diary.
During this time, we recorded subjective and objective sleep parameters in the
snorers and their bed partners via wrist actigraphy and sleep diaries for 14
days. For statistical analysis, we used two-sided t-tests and Spearman’s Rho. Results: The dataset
included 45 snorers (11 females) and 45 bed partners (34 females) with a mean
age of 47 ± 13 and 43 ± 12 years. Screening for sleep apnea yielded snoring
without OSAS, mild-, moderate- and severe OSAS in 27 (60%), eight (18%), three
(7%) and six (15%) snorers. PSQI total scores were significantly lower in
snorers than in bed partners (4 ± 2 vs. 6 ± 4, p = 0.002). We could not find a
significant correlation between subjective and objective sleep latency and
efficiency. Couples who changed their sleeping arrangement were significantly
younger than those who habitually slept alone or together (p = 0.01). Subjective
sleep parameters of snorers or bed partners were not related to the number of
consecutive nights spent either together or apart. Conclusions: Our study
confirmed the weak correlation of subjective and objective sleep parameters in
pairs with snoring problems. Couples changing their sleeping arrangement were
the youngest among the whole group, but their separation of
sleeping arrangements did not improve subjective sleep parameters.