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A Peer Reviewed Publication of the College of Allied Health & Nursing at Nova Southeastern University |
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Self Reported versus Recorded Sleep Position: An
Observational Study
Correspondence and requests for reprints should be directed to:
Susan J Gordon . Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the support and co-operation of Drew Dawson, Director of the Centre for Sleep Research, University of South Australia, in allowing us to use the facilities of the Centre. We also wish to thank the staff of the centre for their assistance during the study.
Introduction Confidence in people’s self-reported sleep position is important in several settings. Allied health professionals rely on patients to supply accurate and reliable information about their ‘usual’ and ‘recent’ sleep positions, and reasons for changes to these, in order to construct appropriate health management strategies.1 For example patients who present to allied health practitioners with nocturnal and or waking musculoskeletal symptoms are often asked about their ‘usual’ and ‘recent’ sleep positions to determine if these could be stressing anatomical structures and contributing to the presenting problem..2 Moreover, a change in sleep position is reported as being beneficial to the health of people who suffer a range of medical conditions such as heartburn, chronic indigestion, 3 asthma or other respiratory illnesses, 4 and sleep apnoea.5 Manufacturers are increasingly producing pillows that are claimed to be specifically designed for side or supine sleepers. Key assumptions are that purchasers are familiar with their ‘usual’ sleeping positions, and that ‘usual’ sleep positions are habitual. People first begin to develop a definite sleep position, at about three months of age, when infants begin to move freely and turn over by themselves, by the age of seven years a definitive sleep position is assumed (6). In adults the most common reported sleep position is the semi-foetal position, with other common positions being full-foetal, prone and supine.6,7,8 Although individuals have a pattern of constancy with regard to sleep position 9 as age increases this pattern changes with increased preference for the side sleep position, decreased preference for the prone sleep position, decreased position shifts and increased amounts of postural immobility 10 lasting between 45 and 110 minutes.11,12 Adult subjects are reported to change their position of sleep between three and 36 times per night. 6,7,11,13 Reports of position shifts vary considerably between studies due to the sensitivity of the recording or observation technique and the definition of position shift.14 A videotape study undertaken to observe only body position changes in adults reported that participants averaged 13 body position shifts per night.11 Good sleepers change sleep position during the night less often than poor sleepers.7,12,15 Subject self-estimates of body movement frequency during the night are reported to be significantly related to recorded gross body movements.16 Position shifts during the night have been related to stage of sleep,17,18 medication usage, 19,20 level of comfort which may be related to temperature, hardness of the bed surface, 18 soft tissue compression21 uncomfortable pillow,22 unfamiliar surroundings, noise, anxiety and stress,17 medical and musculo-skeletal condition,9, 23, 24, 25, 26 and partner movement.27 This study does not concern itself with issues of sleep laterality but investigates the validity, consistency and reliability of self reported supine, prone and side sleep positions and specifically asks the questions: · Do people sleep in the position they report they sleep in? · Is there agreement over time with regard to self reports of sleep position? · Is there agreement over time between self reported sleep position and recorded sleep position? Ethics approval for this study was gained from the University of South Australia, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville, South Australia and complied with the Helsinki Declaration. Method Location This study was conducted at the Centre for Sleep Research of the University of South Australia, which is housed at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville, South Australia. The sleep laboratories are modern and comfortable with a bed, chair, desk and TV provided in each room. Subjects have access to a lounge room, bathroom and kitchen facilities to allow them to perform their usual bedtime rituals in privacy and comfort. Subjects Subjects were eligible for the study if at the time of the study they were not suffering from any sleep disorder or any current medical or emotional condition which altered their usual sleep behaviours. Twelve eligible male and female volunteers were recruited from individuals known to the Sleep Centre from other studies, and from colleagues of the researchers. Recruitment was in age strata of 18 to 39 years, 40 to 59 years and 60 years and over. All participants were mailed an information sheet two weeks prior to commencement of the study and written informed consent was obtained from each subject at the commencement of the study. Considering the ‘first night’ effect It is general practice in sleep research not to use data collected on the first night of sleep in the sleep laboratory. This is considered to be an adaptation night to take account of the effect of a different sleep environment which may influence usual sleeping patterns. It is known that during a subject’s first night of sleep in a laboratory they have an increased state of vigilance or arousal, which is considered to be a normal stress response to a novel or uncomfortable situation.28.29 The first night effect in normal subjects is characterised by a longer rapid eye movement (REM) sleep latency, increased wakefulness within total sleep time, and decreased sleep efficiency.30 It has been shown that the first night effect is strongly associated with the experimental surroundings and the recording method itself (31). When the physical imposts of providing recordings in a sleep laboratory are reduced and a comfortable friendly environment is provided, the first night effect has been shown to diminish.29,30,32 To ameliorate any first night effect, subjects in this study were encouraged to follow their usual bed time rituals. They used their own pillow and were encouraged to undertake their usual routine prior to retiring (including time of retiring). This maintained subjects’ test environment as closely as possible to their usual sleep environment. Procedure Subjects slept at the Sleep Centre for one night, returned home to sleep for two nights and then spent a second night at the Sleep Centre. Two nights sleep at home between test nights were required to allow subjects who experience sleep deprivation (such as after sleeping in an unfamiliar environment such as a sleep laboratory) to recover.30 Data collection Self-reports of sleep position were collected by questionnaire, administered twice, on each occasion of testing at the Sleep Centre (See Appendix). Prior to retiring, subjects recorded the position in which they believed they spent most time during a ‘usual’ night’s sleep, and the following morning, they recorded the position in which they believed they had spent the most time during the previous night. They also reported whether this position differed from their ‘usual’ sleep position, and if so why this may have occurred. Actual sleep behaviours were captured on video tape. Each sleep laboratory was lit by an infra-red light source. A video camera was attached to the ceiling directly over the bed and connected to monitors and video recorders in the control area. Subjects were videotaped for the entire time spent in bed (going to sleep, asleep and waking up) on both nights spent in the sleep laboratory. As no polysomnography was used in this study, it was not possible to determine the actual time of onset of sleep or waking, or the presence of physiological variations related to a first night effect. Thus ‘sleep’ was determined as a gross measure of the time spent by each subject in bed, with the intention of sleeping. The videotapes were viewed later by one of the research team (SG), who used the video counter, which measured time in hours, minutes and seconds, to determine how much time was spent in the side, supine and prone positions whilst in bed, and the number of times subjects changed position. As described in a previous study body position was defined as prone if the subject lay on the stomach, supine if the subject lay on their back with both shoulders on the bed and left or right side, if the subject was judged to be neither on the stomach or the back and was to some degree turned either to the right or left side, as judged by the position of the shoulders.11 Statistical Analysis To test validity: From the video data, the amount of time spent by each subject in side, prone and supine positions throughout the night was summed, and expressed as a percentage of the total time spent in bed. Per subject, the most common sleep position from the video data was compared with questionnaire responses. Validity was reported as the sensitivity with which subjects’ reports of their ‘usual’ and ‘last night’ sleep position correlated with the video data. To determine consistency of sleep positions, the number of hours, and the percentage of total sleep time spent in each position (calculated from the video data) was compared across both nights using paired two tailed Student t-tests. Using the same data and the same approach to testing, the number of times subjects changed position during sleep was compared. To test reliability of self reports, the two sets of questionnaire responses were compared in three ways (nights 1 and 2 ‘usual’ sleep, mornings 1 and 2 ‘last night sleep’, and ‘usual’ and ‘last night’ sleep for both occasions of testing). Percent agreement was reported for each calculation. Kappa scores could not be calculated because of lack of numbers in some cells. The effect of age was assessed for all investigations, using Student t-tests, ANOVA models or chi squared tests as appropriate. Results Subjects The twelve subjects consisted of one male and three females in each of three age groups (18-39 years, 40-59 years and 60 years and over). All subjects reported that they experienced no usual sleep disturbance due to medical or emotional problems. Actual sleep behaviours Sleep positions Calculated from the video data, the number of hours spent in side, supine and prone positions, and the percentage that these values represented of the total amount of ‘sleep’ is shown in Table 1 for each subject on both occasions of testing. As reported in table 2 overall 73.2% of the total amount of sleep time over the two nights was spent in the side lying position. Supine sleeping reflected a considerably lower percentage of total sleeping time, 22.3%, with prone sleeping taking up the remainder of the time. Over the two nights of testing there were no statistically significant differences between the amounts of time subjects were observed (via video) to spend in each sleep position (Table 3). Table 1. The amount of time (hours and minutes), and the percentage of the total amount of time, spent in sleep positions by each subject as recorded by video.
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