Sleep quality in relation to social support and resilience among rural empty-nest older adults in China

Population ageing is a global problem, and one of the adverse effects in China is the rural empty-nest phenomenon, which is increasingly prominent. Recently, the sleep problems of rural empty nesters have gradually aroused attention. The purpose of this article was to investigate sleep quality and its influencing factors in rural empty nesters and explore the correlation between social support, resilience and sleep quality in the target population. This study investigated 250 empty nesters in six rural areas. Information on sociodemographics, sleep quality, social support and resilience was collected. Univariate analysis and multivariate analysis were used to determine the influencing factors of sleep quality. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the linear associations between social support, resilience and sleep quality. The mediating effect of resilience between social support and sleep quality was measured by bootstrap-mediated analysis. The sleep quality score among rural empty nesters was 6.74 ± 3.80. Sleep quality was influenced significantly by marital status, monthly income, number of chronic diseases and frequency of communication with children. Besides, social support and resilience were significantly positively correlated with sleep quality. Resilience was not the only mediating variable between social support and sleep quality. The sleep quality of rural empty nesters was poorer than those of the general rural older adults and affected by multiple factors. Moreover, social support and resilience had a positive impact on the sleep quality of rural empty nesters, which provided new ideas for exploring specific measures to improve their sleep quality in the future.