Evaluation of Sleep Disorders in Nonmetastatic Breast Cancer Patients Based on Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index

Background: The prevalence of breast cancer, the most common cancer in women, has remained steady over the past decades. In general, patients with early stage breast cancer undergo primary surgery with or without chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Insomnia is a very common problem in breast cancer patients, but its evaluation and treatment have not taken its place in the daily clinical application routines. In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of the sleep disorders in women whose adjuvant chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy were completed at least 1 year ago and we used The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) as the standard self-report instrument in sleep disorder evaluation.

Patients And Methods: The participants were outpatients followed-up at Bakirköy Dr. Sadi Konuk Training and Research Hospital, Medical Oncology Clinic whose breast surgery performed and adjuvant chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy were completed at least one year ago, and all having histopathologically proven verified cancer diagnoses. Ninety-two participants were enrolled to study and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used for sleep disorder evaluation.

Results: Poor quality sleep, estimated by the score of the PSQI, was observed in 53 (60%) of the participants (global score was =5). No statistically significant difference was observed between the sleep quality scores of patient groups based on endocrine treatment, manopausal status, marital status, educational status, breast surgery type, or duration after diagnoses (P > 0.05).

Conclusions: We can conclude that poor sleep quality is a highly prevalent problem in nonmetastatic breast cancer patients, we determined a high prevalence rate of insomnia at 60%. PSQI is an appropriate and useful tool that physicians can apply while assessing sleep disorders in cancer patients. The improvement in the diagnosis and management of sleep disorders will contribute to a major improvement in the symptom control of insomnia for cancer patients.