Epidemiologist Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, Georgia
Rationale: In people with epilepsy, poorer sleep may trigger worse seizure control, and worse seizure control may trigger poorer sleep. This study assessed sleep duration and sleep quality by epilepsy status in the general U.S. adult population aged ≥18 years. Methods: In aggregated cross-sectional National Health Interview Surveys for 2013, 2015, and 2017, we compared the prevalence of sleep duration and quality between those with an epilepsy history (physician-diagnosed epilepsy) (N=1,774) and without epilepsy (N=93,126), and between those with active epilepsy (who either were currently taking medication to control it, or had one or more seizures in the past year, or both) (N=1,101) and those with inactive epilepsy (who were neither taking medication for epilepsy nor had had a seizure in the past year) (N=673). We adjusted the prevalence for sociodemographic and behavior or clinical risk factors, with multivariable logistic regression. We conducted Z-tests to compare prevalence at the statistical significance level of 0.05. Results: Adults with an epilepsy history more often slept < 7 hours per day or slept >9 hours per day on average than those without epilepsy (35% vs. 32% and 7% vs. 4%, respectively) (p values < 0.05). In the past week, adults with an epilepsy history were also more likely to have trouble staying asleep (≥4 times) (26% vs. 21%) and to take medication to help themselves fall asleep or stay asleep (≥4 times) (12% vs. 8%), but were less likely to wake up feeling well rested (≥4 days) (58% vs. 63%) (all p values < 0.05). However, adults with active epilepsy did not differ from those with inactive epilepsy for these sleep measures. Conclusions: Adults with an epilepsy history more likely reported a short or long sleep duration and poorer sleep quality than those without epilepsy. Identifying and intervening on the risk factors related to sleep duration and quality among people with epilepsy may improve associated outcomes such as seizure control and quality of life. Funding: Please list any funding that was received in support of this abstract.: N/A
