Association of sleep condition and social frailty in community‐dwelling older people

Aim This cross‐sectional study examined whether sleep duration and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) were associated with social frailty in community‐dwelling older people. Methods A total of 4427 community‐dwelling older people (51.4% women, mean age 71.9 years) who met the entry criteria were included in this study. Social frailty was assessed by five questions, relating to going out less frequently than last year, not visiting friends sometimes, not feeling helpful to friends or family, living alone and not talking with someone every day. Participants with two or more components were defined as having social frailty. Sleep duration and EDS were assessed by self‐reported questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis estimated odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals of social frailty according to EDS or the three categories of sleep duration (short ≤6.0 h, medium 6.1–8.9 h, long ≥9.0 h), and we used medium‐duration sleepers as the reference group. Results Among all participants, the prevalence of social frailty in each sleep duration group was as follows: long 18.3%, short 9.9% and medium 9.7% ( P < 0.001). The prevalence of social frailty in participants with EDS was 17.1% (no EDS 10.2%, P < 0.001). Long sleep duration (odds ratio 1.46, 95% confidence interval 1.14–1.84) and presence of EDS (hazard ratio 1.32, 95% confidence interval 1.02–1.71) were associated with higher rates of social frailty after adjustments for several covariates. Conclusions Long sleep duration and EDS were associated with social frailty; thus, older people with both sleep patterns would have a higher risk of progression of social frailty. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2019; 19: 885–889 .