Don't sleep on link between insomnia and social frailty in older adults

While insomnia has been associated with frailty, its association with social frailty remains unclear, particularly among adults in late old age. An Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team aimed to examine the association between insomnia symptoms and social frailty in community-dwelling adults aged 75 years and older.

In their cross-sectional study, mailed questionnaire data were obtained from 2,091 community-dwelling adults aged 75 years and older in Matsubara, Osaka, Japan. Insomnia symptoms were assessed using the Japanese version of the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS-J), with scores of ≥ 6 indicating insomnia symptoms, while social frailty was defined as a score of ≥ 2 on Makizako’s five-item questionnaire.

Among participants with complete data on both AIS-J and social frailty, social frailty was present in 64.4% of those with insomnia symptoms and in 40.0% of those without insomnia symptoms. Insomnia symptoms were significantly associated with social frailty in the primary model when adjusted for sociodemographic factors and cognitive impairment, and this association remained significant after further adjustment for physical frailty using an additional model.

The results of this study showed that insomnia symptoms were significantly associated with social frailty in community-dwelling adults aged 75 years and older. While these findings underscore the relevance of sleep to social vulnerability in late old age, longitudinal studies are needed to clarify directionality.

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