Status and manifestations of sleep disorders and the status of drugs used to help fall sleep in Chinese breast cancer women at initial diagnosis and during chemotherapy

Purpose This study was designed to investigate the status and manifestations of sleep disorders and the status of drugs used to help fall sleep in Chinese breast cancer women at initial diagnosis and during chemotherapy. Patients and Methods Totally 308 primary breast cancer women were enrolled. The status and manifestations of sleep disorders and the status of drugs used to help fall sleep in the above breast cancer patients were assessed via the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Result The prevalence of sleep disorders in patients at the time of initial diagnosis with breast cancer was approximately 50% (97/194), which was significantly lower than that (65.8%, 75/114) in breast cancer patients before the last cycle of chemotherapy (p＜0.05) . However, both groups of patients rarely used drugs to help them fall sleep (P>0.05). The mean scores for sleep latency, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbance, and daytime dysfunction (1.68, 1.08, 1.65, 1.37) in breast cancer patients prior to the last cycle of chemotherapy were obviously worse than those (1.29, 0.71, 1.26, 1.01) in breast cancer patients at the time of initial diagnosis (p<0.05). Conclusion Chemotherapy mainly affects the sleep latency, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbance, daytime dysfunction in breast cancer patients. Chinese breast cancer patients rarely use drugs to intervene sleep disorders.