Yoshitaka Kaneita, MD¹, Takashi Ohida, MD¹, Akiyo Kaneko, MD¹, Yuko Yagi, MA¹, Kenshu Suzuki, MD¹, Eise Yokoyama, MD¹, Takeo Miyake, MD¹, Satoru Harano, MD¹, Makoto Uchiyama, MD², Shinji Takemura³, Kazuo Kawahara, MD⁴, and Toshiharu Fujita, MD⁵. (1) Department of Public Health, Nihon University, 30-1 Ooyaguchi Kamimachi, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 81-3-3972-8111, kaneita@med.nihon-u.ac.jp, (2) Department of Psychophysiology, National Institute of Mental Health, Japan, 1-7-3 Kohnodai, Ichikawa, 272-0827, Japan, (3) Department of Public Health Policy, National Institute of Public Health, Japan, 2-3-6 Minami, Wako City, Saitama, 3510197, Japan, (4) Department of Health Policy Science, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 2-3-21 Kandasurugadai, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan, (5) Department of Epidemiology, National Institute of Public Health, Japan, 2-3-6 Minami, Wako City, Saitama, Japan

Among existing epidemiological studies that have examined the relationship between depression and sleep disturbances, there were few nationwide studies conducted on subjects representing the general population, because most of them were conducted with either small sample size or with subjects selected from particular age classes or communities. The present study was conducted to clarify the relationship between depression and sleep disturbances using a large sample representative of the general population. The survey was conducted using self-administered questionnaires in June 2000, targeting a population randomly selected from among 300 communities throughout Japan. Among the respondents, 24,686 aged 20 or above were analyzed. For assessing depression, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was used. Sleep status was evaluated using sleep duration, subjective sleep sufficiency, and presence or nonpresence of symptoms of sleep problems. The prevalence of those having CES-D scores of 16 or higher, which is recognized as the cut-off score, was 29.9%. Those whose sleep duration was less than 6 hours and those whose sleep duration was 8 hours or more tended to be more depressed than those whose sleep duration was between 6 and 8 hours. Thus, sleep duration showed a U-shaped association with symptoms of depression. As subjective sleep sufficiency decreased, symptoms of depression increased, indicating a linear-inverse-proportional relationship. Those who had symptoms of sleep problems tended to be more depressed than those who did not. These findings may be useful in attempts to do medical management of depression or sleep disturbances.

Learning Objectives:

• to understand the relationship between depression and sleep disturbances.

Keywords: Psychiatric Epidemiology,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.