Daytime Sleepiness, Nighttime Sleep Quality, Stressful Life Events, and HIV-Related Fatigue

In this report, the authors describe the relationships between daytime sleepiness, nighttime sleep quality, stressful life events, and HIV-related fatigue in a sample of 128 individuals; they report the baseline results of a longitudinal observational study. They examined sleep using the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (a measure of the quality of nighttime sleep), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, (a measure of daytime sleepiness). Recent stressful life events were measured via a methodology developed in a previous 9-year HIV study. Poor nighttime sleep was significantly correlated with fatigue intensity (r = .46, p < .05), as was daytime sleepiness (r = .20, p < .05). However, in multiple regression models, the association between stress and fatigue intensity was not explained by daytime sleepiness and was only partially explained by nighttime sleep quality. Further research is needed to better elucidate these relationships.

Key words: daytime sleepiness, HIV-related fatigue, nighttime sleep, stressful life events