Are Spouses' Sleep Problems a Mechanism Through Which Health is Compromised? Evidence Regarding Insomnia and Heart Disease.

BACKGROUND

Symptoms of insomnia have been widely identified as risk factors for health, including heart disease. Despite the expansive and growing literature on health concordance among coupled individuals, few studies have examined insomnia as a shared risk factor for heart disease among middle-aged and older couples.

PURPOSE

This study examined the association between insomnia and incident heart disease among couples. A dyadic modeling approach was employed to investigate the relationships between one's own insomnia and partners' insomnia for the risk of incident heart disease for each partner.

METHODS

Data from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 Health and Retirement Study were utilized in a prospective research design (N = 3,221 couples). Actor-partner interdependence models were employed to estimate actor and partner effects of insomnia symptoms for incident heart disease over the 4 year observation period.

RESULTS

Insomnia symptoms measured at baseline were related to an increased risk for heart disease for husbands, whereas for wives the association was attenuated after other health measures were controlled. Wives' insomnia was related to an increased risk of incident heart disease for husbands but husbands' insomnia was not related to wives' risk of heart disease.

CONCLUSIONS

This study showed how subjective insomnia symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in intimate partnerships are associated with their heart disease risk. Further research is needed to verify the results with objective measures of sleep problems and heart disease.