In an analysis of data, poor sleep quality was strongly associated with an increased risk for COPD exacerbations over 18 months of follow-up, according to Medpage Today.
Every two point increase in self-reported Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score was associated with about a 10% increased relative risk of having a COPD exacerbation over the study follow-up, adjusted for exacerbation risk factors, said lead researcher Matthew Shorofsky, who is a pulmonary medicine fellow at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Shorofsky presented the analysis of data from the Canadian Cohort of Obstructive Lung Disease (CanCOLD) in poster presentation at the American Thoracic Society annual meeting.
“Our finding suggest that poor sleep and COPD are strongly related, but it is a chicken-egg issue,” Shorofsky told MedPage Today. “We can’t really say if exacerbations caused poor sleep or if poor sleep contributed to exacerbations. We need additional studies to figure this out.”
