Hormone replacement therapy, sleep quality and psychological wellbeing.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the effect of hormone replacement therapy upon sleep quality and duration in postmenopausal women.

DESIGN

Randomised, single-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

SETTING

Sleep research laboratory.

SUBJECTS

Thirty-three healthy postmenopausal women.

INTERVENTIONS

Continuous 0.625 mg conjugated equine oestrogens with 0.15 mg cyclic norgestrel taken for 12 days per 28 day cycle.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Occurrence of vasomotor symptoms, polysomnographic sleep stage measures, Stanford sleepiness questionnaire, Crown-Crisp experiential index and the cognitive failures questionnaire.

RESULTS

Hormone replacement therapy results in an improvement in menopausal symptoms but not in parameters of sleep quality. Despite this, certain measures of psychological wellbeing showed significant improvement in the hormone replacement therapy group.

CONCLUSION

Hormone replacement therapy results in a measurable improvement in physical and psychological welfare, the latter being independent of improvement in sleep quality.