Allen Nathaniel, Crock Lucas, Chun Timothy, Reinhard Matthew J
Department of Veterans Affairs,War Related Illness and Injury Study Center (WRIISC), Washington, DC, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.
Sleep Adv. 2024 Mar 28;5(1):zpae018. doi: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpae018. eCollection 2024.
This study (1) assessed sleep quality and health in Gulf War veterans (GWV) meeting the Gulf War Illness (GWI) criteria and (2) compared health associations for both those meeting a "clinically disturbed sleep" threshold, and those below, as determined by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) cutoff for military populations (≥10) on measures of physical, mental, and cognitive health.
Participant data consisted of questionnaires and assessments completed prior to group assignment in a clinical trial. The sample consisted of 147 GWV, where 81.0% were males, and the median age was 53.4 years.
The mean (SD) PSQI global score was 12.34 (4.00) with 61% of the sample qualifying as clinically disturbed sleepers according to the cutoff (global PSQI ≥ 10). GWI veterans with PSQI scores ≥10 did not differ from others in age ( = 0.20), sex ( = 0.19), or years of education ( = 0.87), but showed worse GW-related symptomology on the Gulf War Kansas questionnaire ( < 0.01), and poorer mental health on the Veterans Rand-36 ( < 0.01).
Disturbed sleep was associated with measures of pain, fatigue, and cognitive health. Our results suggest that a previously determined clinical threshold for clinically disturbed sleep is useful when examining the health status of the study population. Given that GWI is associated with elevated PSQI scores and a high frequency of disturbed sleep, cutoffs determining sleep health should be sensitive to population exposures and health history to improve interpretability.
本研究（1）评估符合海湾战争疾病（GWI）标准的海湾战争退伍军人（GWV）的睡眠质量和健康状况，（2）比较匹兹堡睡眠质量指数（PSQI）针对军人人群设定的临界值（≥10）所确定的达到“临床睡眠障碍”阈值者和未达到该阈值者在身体、心理和认知健康指标方面的健康关联。
参与者数据包括在一项临床试验中分组前完成的问卷和评估。样本包括147名GWV，其中81.0%为男性，中位年龄为53.4岁。
PSQI全球得分的均值（标准差）为12.34（4.00），根据临界值（全球PSQI≥10），61%的样本符合临床睡眠障碍者标准。PSQI得分≥10的GWI退伍军人在年龄（P = 0.20）、性别（P = 0.19）或受教育年限（P = 0.87）方面与其他人无差异，但在海湾战争堪萨斯问卷上显示出更严重的与海湾战争相关的症状（P < 0.01），在退伍军人兰德36项健康调查中心理健康状况更差（P < 0.01）。
睡眠障碍与疼痛、疲劳和认知健康指标相关。我们的结果表明，在检查研究人群的健康状况时，先前确定的临床睡眠障碍临界值是有用的。鉴于GWI与PSQI得分升高和睡眠障碍高频率相关，确定睡眠健康的临界值应考虑人群暴露情况和健康史，以提高可解释性。
