Higher ratings for quality of life and lower ratings for depression were found in people who had a “normal” sleep pattern of 6 to 9 hours per night.
Data from 10,654 patient records from January 2008 to May 2010 was analyzed. An EQ-5D questionnaire was used to assess quality of life, while a nine-item patient health questionnaire was used to screen for depression. Short sleepers had less than 6 hours of sleep a night and long sleepers were classified as having more than nine hours of sleep a night.
“These results are important because they provide more information about the importance of getting enough sleep, which is usually six to nine hours per night,” Charles Bae, MD, stated in a press release, “People may already expect that their quality of life could be decreased when they do not get enough sleep, but they may not realize that sleeping too much can also have a negative impact.”
The results were statistically significant in all comparisons. Patients who reported having perfect health had a higher percentage of normal sleepers and significantly lower scored for depression in comparison to short and long sleepers with perfect health.
“It was surprising to see that sleeping less than six hours and more than nine hours is associated with a similar decrease in quality of life and increase in depressive symptoms,” Bae said. “I thought that there would be changes in quality of life and degree of depressive symptoms for short and long sleepers, but did not expect that those changes would be similar in both groups.”
