Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-13-2024

Publication Title

Scientific Reports

Volume

14

Pages

1-10

Publisher Name

Springer Nature

Abstract

South Africans living in low socioeconomic areas have self-reported unusually long sleep durations (approximately 9–10 h). One hypothesis is that these long durations may be a compensatory response to poor sleep quality as a result of stressful environments. This study aimed to investigate whether fear of not being safe during sleep is associated with markers of sleep quality or duration in men and women. South Africans (n = 411, 25–50 y, 57% women) of African-origin living in an urban township, characterised by high crime and poverty rates, participated in this study. Participants are part of a larger longitudinal cohort study: Modelling the Epidemiologic Transition Study (METS)–Microbiome. Customised questions were used to assess the presence or absence of fears related to feeling safe during sleep, and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Insomnia Severity Index were used to assess daytime sleepiness, sleep quality and insomnia symptom severity respectively. Adjusted logistic regression models indicated that participants who reported fears related to safety during sleep were more likely to report poor sleep quality (PSQI > 5) compared to participants not reporting such fears and that this relationship was stronger among men than women. This is one of the first studies outside American or European populations to suggest that poor quality sleep is associated with fear of personal safety in low-SES South African adults.

Comments

Author Posting © The Author(s), 2024. This article is posted here by permission of Springer Nature for personal use and redistribution. This article was published open access in Scientific Reports, VOL.14, (February 13, 2024), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54032-w.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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