Abstract Introduction Sleep disturbance is prevalent among family caregivers; however, prior studies have largely examined global sleep quality cross-sectionally rather than using longitudinal approaches to understand specific problems. General sleep difficulty and caregiving-related interruptions likely have different drivers. For instance, care recipient dementia or sleep disturbance may necessitate nighttime care and increase caregiving-related sleep interruptions, whereas caregiver strain may underlie a general sleep problem in caregivers. Using a national, longitudinal sample of co-residing caregivers of older adults, we examined whether baseline caregiver strain and care recipient characteristics predict difficulty resuming sleep and caregiving-related sleep interruptions at 2-year follow-up. Methods We analyzed data from the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC) linked to the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) Rounds 5 (baseline) and 7 (follow-up). In a sample of 608 co-residing caregivers, we conducted logistic regression to examine caregiver sleep problems (difficulty resuming sleep and caregiving-related interruption) at follow-up in relation to baseline care recipients’ factors (sleep disturbances and dementia status), caregiver physical, emotional, and social strain. Covariates included caregivers’ sleep problems and demographics at baseline. Survey weights were applied. Results Co-residing caregivers were predominately female (63.8%) and Non-Hispanic White (64.6%). About 20.0% were caring for older adults living with dementia. At baseline, 47.7% of caregivers reported difficulty resuming sleep and 23.8% experienced caregiving-related sleep interruptions. Baseline care recipient sleep and physical strain were not significantly associated with either caregiver sleep problem at follow-up. Compared to non-dementia caregivers, dementia caregivers had 2.81 times the odds of caregiving-related sleep interruptions at follow-up (95%CI 1.15–6.86). Caregivers’ emotional strain (OR=1.83, 95%CI 1.02–3.26) was associated with caregiving-related sleep interruptions. Notably, caregivers’ social strain was associated with both difficulty resuming sleep (OR=2.15, 95%CI 1.22–3.79) and caregiving-related sleep interruptions (OR=2.95, 95%CI 1.42–6.17). Conclusion Findings suggest caregiver sleep problems may be primarily driven by caregiver strain and the dementia care context. Interventions to improve caregiver sleep should prioritize alleviating caregivers’ social and emotional strain, with targeted support for dementia caregivers. Incorporating objective sleep measures in future studies would help validate self-reported sleep disturbances and better understand the impact of caregiver strain. Support (if any)
Cho et al. (Fri,) studied this question.