P02.72
Purpose: Mind-body interventions have increasing evidence of benefit for multiple health conditions. Many mind-body studies have included sleep as a primary or secondary outcome measure. The purpose of this study was to formally evaluate the effect of mind-body interventions on sleep.
Methods: We reviewed randomized controlled mind-body intervention trials on adults (prior to 1/1/13) with at least one sleep outcome measure. We searched 11 electronic databases and hand searched the reference lists of included studies and relevant review articles using relevant search terms. We excluded papers: not considered mind-body medicine; not having a proper control group, and; consisting of multi-component interventions. Two reviewers independently reviewed abstracts for inclusion and extracted data. Studies were categorized by type of mind-body intervention, whether sleep was primary or secondary outcome measure, and type of outcome measure.
Results: 1051 non-duplicate abstracts were screened, and 74 out of the 82 reviewed papers were included for analysis. Overall, 61 (82.4%) of studies with a variety of mind-body interventions reported a beneficial effect on at least one sleep outcome measure. Of the most common interventions, 17/17 studies using meditation and 17/21 using relaxation and imagery reported improvements in sleep. 12/74 studies used physiologic and the rest used self-rated sleep measures. There was not a remarkable discrepancy between conclusions based on physiologic and self-rated outcomes. There were clear risks of bias for many studies reviewed, especially when sleep was not the main focus of the study.
Conclusion: Many studies using mind-body interventions had sleep as an outcome measure and the majority reported improvements in some aspect of sleep. It is reasonable to include some sleep outcome measure in most mind-body intervention trials since there is evidence that mind-body interventions have a positive effect and quality of sleep is a vital sign has a direct impact on many other health outcomes.
Contact: Barry Oken, oken@ohsu.edu
