Difficulty Falling-asleep and Sleep Quality in a Website-based Survey

Abstract

Background: There are many people suffering from difficulty falling asleep. Though some recovers spontaneously, some repeats itself and there comes a time when perpetuating factors psychologically influence a progress to insomnia disorders. 80% of Insomnia disorders are comprised of Sleep Onset Latency insomnia. Objective: A brief survey to get an idea about the current situation of “difficulty falling asleep” in the society and to lay the foundation for further development / knowledge management in preventing insomnia disorder predisposed by “difficulty falling asleep”. Method: Data from 91 Thai adults obtained using an internet-based questionnaire survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Spearmen’s Rank Correlation to examine associations between data scores from sleep-onset symptom question groups and the global scores / each component scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Results: Two-third of the study participants have poor sleep quality. One-third of those with poor sleep quality have a problem with difficulty falling sleep. Difficulty falling asleep has a strong positive correlation with overall sleep quality, but weak to moderate correlation with other each PSQI components. Conclusion: Difficulty falling asleep is a common symptom. Gaining on insight into “difficulty falling asleep” is in real need.