Sleep and dizziness in middle-aged and elderly persons: A cross-sectional population-based study

Objectives

Dizziness is a physical and mental burden that affects 33% of the population at age 70. Research in clinical samples suggests that poor sleep may contribute to dizziness complaints, but this has yet to be determined in the general population. We assessed the association of self-reported and actigraphy-estimated sleep with dizziness in a population-based sample.

Methods

Data of 4702 participants from the population-based Rotterdam Study, included between 2011 and 2014, were analyzed (mean age: 65.8 years, 55.7% women). Sleep quality was measured with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Experience of dizziness and associated characteristics were self-reported, characteristics were categorized as vestibular or non-vestibular. A subsample of 1440 participants (mean age: 64.9 years, 51.3% women) wore an actigraph for a median of 7 days to allow objective estimation of total sleep time, sleep efficiency, sleep onset latency, and wake after sleep onset. We used logistic regression to assess the associations between different sleep parameters and dizziness.

Results

Poor self-reported sleep quality was associated with more dizziness (OR = 1.065, 95% CI: 1.043 to 1.087). This effect size was somewhat larger for dizziness with non-vestibular characteristics (OR = 1.108, 1.069 to 1.149) than for dizziness with vestibular characteristics (OR = 1.062, 0.988 to 1.142). Actigraphy-estimated sleep parameters were not associated with dizziness.

Conclusions

A poor self-reported sleep quality is associated with more dizziness in a population-based sample of middle-aged and elderly persons. We encourage clinicians to assess sleep quality in patients presenting with dizziness, and vice versa.