MEMPHIS, Apr 16, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Cancer patients having trouble
sleeping reported having significantly more fatigue, pain and depressed mood
than those who slept well, U.S. researchers said.
Lead author Edward J. Stepanski of the Accelerated Community Oncology Research
Network in Memphis, said the relationship between pain and sleep often has been
assumed to be reciprocal. In the present study, a model of reciprocal causation
could not be fit to the data, and models in which pain caused trouble sleeping
did not fit as well as the model in which trouble sleeping caused pain.
"We believed we would find a bi-directional relationship between insomnia and
pain, but instead we found that trouble sleeping was more likely a cause, rather
than a consequence, of pain in patients with cancer," Stepanski said in a
statement.
The researchers report that increases in depressed mood also led to increased
ratings of pain.
The study included demographic, clinical and patient-reported outcomes data from
11,445 cancer patients with an average age of 61.5 years undergoing treatment in
Memphis. The majority of participants -- 74 percent -- were female and 25
percent of study subjects had received chemotherapy in the last 30 days.
The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
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Copyright 2009 by United Press International