Abstract
Objectives
Sleep quality plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of older people and has
become a major public health concern throughout the world. Social engagement, as a
core component of “Active Ageing”, is one of the key determinants of health outcomes
of older adults. This study estimated the relationship between social engagement and
sleep quality among older adults living in rural China, and to determine whether there
is a sex difference in these associations.
Design
A cross-sectional design. Multilevel, multiple linear regression models were used
to examine the independent associations between each type of social engagement and
sleep quality. All standard errors were clustered at the community level.
Setting and Participants
Data were from 3243 adults age 60 years or older from rural areas in China.
Methods
Sleep quality was measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Social engagement
was measured by 3 types of social groups’ activity in this study, including participation
in hobby groups, community-related organization, and sports groups.
Results
Participating in hobby groups, community-related organization, and sports groups with
high frequency are all associated with better sleep quality. In addition, the positive
relation between participating in community-related organization and sleep quality
is stronger for older male than female adults, and the positive association between
participating in hobby groups/sports groups is stronger for older female than male
adults.
Conclusions and Implications
Older adults with high-frequency of social engagement may have better sleep quality.
This study offers new insight for the sleep quality from the perspective of social
engagement among older people, implies that encouraging targeted social engagement
in older people with different sex may be effective in promoting sleep quality in
rural China.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 10, 2020
Footnotes
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 71774104, 71974117), the China Medical Board (grant numbers 16-257), Cheeloo Youth Scholar Grant, and Shandong University (IFYT1810, 2012DX006).
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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