Journal of

Introduction and purpose: Sleep quality is an important health indicator among elderly. Recognizing factors that affect sleep among elderly may help researchers to develop interventions for promoting quality of sleep.  Therefore, this study aimed to identify sleep quality of elderly and its related factors.

Materials & Methods: This descriptive correlational study was conducted among elderly residing at nursing homes of Isfahan city.  We used stratified random sampling method to collect 91 elderly into the current study. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to measure sleep quality of elderly.  Data were analyzed by SPSS using independent sample t-test, analysis of variance and correlation coefficients.

Findings: Elderly participated in this study aged 77.3 ± 9.4 years old in average and mean score of PSQI was 17.01±5.89. Majority of respondents (90.1%) had poor sleep quality. There were significant relationships between sleep quality and age, level of physical activity, daily walking, self care activities, visiting relatives and type of room (p<0.05).  However, we found no significant association between sleep quality and sex, marriage, current diseases and tobacco use (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Findings from this study revealed that majority of seniors had poor sleep quality.  Therefore, it is of great importance to encourage elderly to utilize several healthy behaviors such as regular physical activity, walking and self-care activities.