Measuring the prevalence of sleep disturbances in people with dementia living in care homes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sleep disturbances are a feature in people living with dementia, including getting up during the night, difficulty falling asleep, and excessive daytime sleepiness, and may precipitate a person with dementia moving into residential care. There are varying estimates of the frequency of sleep disturbances and it is unknown whether they are a problem for the individual. We conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence and associated factors of sleep disturbances in the care home population with dementia. // METHODS: We searched Embase, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO (29/04/2019) for studies of the prevalence or associated factors of sleep disturbances in people with dementia living in care homes. We computed meta-analytical estimates of the prevalence of sleep disturbances and used meta-regression to investigate effects of method of measurement, demographics and study characteristics. // RESULTS: We included 55 studies of 22,780 participants. The pooled prevalence on validated questionnaires of clinically significant sleep disturbances was 20% (95% Confidence Interval, CI 16-24%) and of any symptom of sleep disturbance was 38% (95% CI 33%-44%). On actigraphy using a cut-off of sleep efficiency