Abstract
BACKGROUND: There is association between sleep quality and arterial blood pressure, but it is still unclear if the association also exists in the very elderly. We examined the individual association between sleep quality and arterial blood pressure among the very elderly. MATERIAL/METHODS: The present study analyzed data from a survey that was conducted on all residents aged 90 years or older in a district with 2,311,709 inhabitants in 2005. Sleep quality was measured using The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). RESULTS: The subjects included in the statistical analysis were 216 men and 444 women. There were no significant differences in sleep quality scores, sleep latency, and sleep efficiency percentage and prevalence of poor sleep quality between subjects with and without hypertension. None of the differences in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and prevalence of hypertension, systolic hypertension and diastolic hypertension among subjects with well, fairly and poor sleep quality were significant. Multiple logistic regressions showed that unadjusted and adjusted Odds Ratio (ORs) of poor sleep quality for increased risk for hypertension were significant. CONCLUSIONS: Among very elderly subjects, there was no association between sleep quality and arterial blood pressure.