Randomized trial examines how sleep patterns in couples affect neuroendocrine health in cancer patients, indicating the importance of relationship quality.
Key Points
The study aims to explore how sleep coregulation between colorectal cancer patients and their spouses affects neuroendocrine functioning over time.
137 dyads of colorectal cancer patients and their spouses completed questionnaires and sleep logs at T1.
Continuous-time structural equation modeling was used to calculate sleep coregulation indices over 14 days.
Participants provided saliva samples to analyze diurnal cortisol slopes at T1 and T2.
Caregivers exhibited significantly flatter diurnal cortisol slopes at T2 compared to T1 (p<0.003).
Patients' steeper T2 cortisol slopes, associated with higher relationship quality, were impacted by sleep coregulation (p≤0.063).
Caregivers' steeper T2 cortisol slopes negatively correlated with greater dependence on patients (p=0.006).