Bad sleep ‘increases hospitalisation risk in heart failure patients’

A new study has shown the link between sleep deprivation and weaker health outcomes among patients with heart failure.

Conducted at the University Hospital of Linkoping in Sweden, the research included 499 patients hospitalised for heart failure and saw data collected on physical functioning, mental health and sleep levels over the course of a year.

The researchers found that 43 percent of patients had sleep problems at discharge from the initial hospitalisation and 30 percent had continued sleep problems at 12 months. Those with sleep deprivation were twice as likely to be hospitalised than those without.

Moreover, risk was doubled for all-cause hospitalisations and cardiovascular hospitalisations, even when results were adjusted for physical and mental health factors.

Lead author Dr Peter Johansson, a heart failure nurse at the University Hospital of Linkoping, said: "Some patients with heart failure have chronic sleep problems and this more than doubles their risk of unplanned hospitalisations. We need to ask all our heart failure patients whether they sleep well and if not, find out why."

Heart failure affects more than 750,000 people in the UK, with more than half of these being over 75 years of age.