A comparison of sleep in rheumatic and non-rheumatic patients.

The St. Mary's Hospital Sleep Questionnaire was used to investigate sleep in 439 hospitalized rheumatic and non-rheumatic patients. This questionnaire enabled an evaluation of both the level of sleep disturbance and the causes of such disturbance. The findings from this study indicated that there was little difference in the level of sleep disturbance between rheumatic and non-rheumatic patients. The sleep problem most frequently cited by rheumatic patients was pain. Noise appeared to be the worst environmental sleep problem in these patients. The only significant difference in the sleep problems reported by rheumatic and non-rheumatic patients, was that pain was cited more frequently in the rheumatic group. In order to determine whether sleep varied according to type of rheumatic disease, the rheumatic patients were divided into four diagnostic groups (rheumatoid arthritis; seronegative spondarthritis; osteoarthritis; other conditions). There were no significant differences between these groups in sleep disturbance or reported sleep problems.