Yang HY, Li L, Yu LJ, Bian GL. Associations of social isolation with sleep duration and sleep quality in the elderly: Mediating influence of depression. World J Psychiatry 2025; 15(4): 102447 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i4.102447]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Guo-Lin Bian, MD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, No. 1 Zhuangyu South Road, Zhuangshi Street, Zhenhai District, Ningbo 315000, Zhejiang Province, China. biangl123@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Geriatrics & Gerontology
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Apr 19, 2025; 15(4): 102447 Published online Apr 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i4.102447
Associations of social isolation with sleep duration and sleep quality in the elderly: Mediating influence of depression
Hong-Ying Yang, Lian Li, Lu-Jie Yu, Guo-Lin Bian
Hong-Ying Yang, Lian Li, Lu-Jie Yu, Guo-Lin Bian, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo 315000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Bian GL conceived the project; Li L and Yu LJ collected and analyzed the data; Yang HY and Li L wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Bian GL provided expert suggestions and revised the manuscript; All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Supported by Ningbo Medical and Health Brand Discipline, No. PPXK2024-07; and Ningbo Top Medical and Health Research Program, No. 2022030410.
Institutional review board statement: Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, No. NBKNYY-2023-LC-29.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Data cannot be made available online due to legal and ethical restrictions and are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request at biangl123@163.com.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Guo-Lin Bian, MD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, No. 1 Zhuangyu South Road, Zhuangshi Street, Zhenhai District, Ningbo 315000, Zhejiang Province, China. biangl123@163.com
Received: October 18, 2024 Revised: December 25, 2024 Accepted: February 7, 2025 Published online: April 19, 2025 Processing time: 158 Days and 19.6 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Sleep disorders are common health problems in the elderly. The effect of social isolation on sleep duration and sleep quality remains unclear in the Chinese community-dwelling elderly.
AIM
To explore the associations of social isolation with sleep duration and sleep quality in community-dwelling elderly people.
METHODS
A total of 7762 community-dwelling elderly people aged 60 years and older in Ningbo were recruited from June 2022 to August 2022. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze the associations of social isolation with sleep duration and sleep quality. The KHB mediating effect model was used to test the mediating effect of depression and anxiety on these associations.
RESULTS
Among the participants, 2656 (34.2%) had abnormal sleep duration (< 6 hours or > 8 hours), 1115 (14.4%) had poor sleep quality, and 917 (11.8%) had social isolation. After adjusting for confounding factors, compared with the elderly without social isolation, the odds ratios (95%CI) of abnormal sleep duration and poor sleep quality in the elderly with social isolation were 1.49 (1.29-1.73) and 1.32 (1.09-1.59), respectively. Depression partially mediated the associations of social isolation with sleep duration and sleep quality, accounting for 5.68% and 9.87% of the mediating effect, respectively.
CONCLUSION
Social isolation was found to be associated with sleep duration and sleep quality in community-dwelling elderly people. More attention should be paid to social isolation in the elderly.
Core Tip: Sleep disorders are common health problems in the elderly. Social isolation was found to be associated with sleep duration and sleep quality in community-dwelling elderly people. This study aims to explore the associations of social isolation with sleep duration and sleep quality, and the mediating effect of depression.
