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People who have acute or chronic pain are more likely to have sleep problems than those people who do not have pain, according to poll results released by the National Sleep Foundation.
The 2015 Sleep in America Poll was a probability-based online survey of 1,029 adults, with field work conducted between Dec. 5 and 12, 2014.
Several of the poll respondents reported chronic pain – 21% and 36% reported having experienced acute pain in the previous week. The pain affected many of the respondents’ sleep patterns, according to the poll, with 37% of the chronic pain group reporting “good or very good” sleep quality, and 45% reporting “good or very good” sleep quality in the acute pain group. Those percentages stood in sharp contrast to those poll respondents who reported no pain; 65% of those respondents reported good quality of sleep.
Not surprisingly, more than half of the respondents who reported chronic pain and associated sleep difficulties reported those difficulties interfered with their work.
The respondents who said they were very or extremely motivated to get enough sleep reported sleeping 36 more minutes per night across the week compared with others (7.3 vs. 6.7 hours). Even among those with pain, a higher motivation to get sleep was associated with longer sleep durations and better sleep quality, the researchers noted.
The complete 2015 Summary of Findings report can be downloaded atsleepfoundation.org.
