Abstract
BackgroundTo identify the risk factors of sleep disturbances in elderly patients after thoracic surgery.MethodsWe enrolled 200 patients, all aged > 65, who underwent elective thoracic surgery and had American Society of Anesthesiology physical status II–III. We recorded general information, surgical diagnosis, type of operation, surgical duration, bleeding, nerve block, and dexmedetomidine dose given by controlled intravenous analgesia (PCIA). We used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) at the end of PCIA to evaluate subjective sleep quality; we also recorded postoperative pain, nausea, and vomiting. We divided patients into a non-sleep disturbances group and a sleep disturbances group with PSQI \(\ge\)5 as the cutoff.ResultsA total of 76 (45%) of the patients had sleep disturbances after thoracic surgery. There were significant differences between groups in terms of chronic insomnia, hypertension, diabetes, BMI, age, surgical diagnosis, type of operation, surgical duration, bleeding, nerve block, and dexmedetomidine dose in PCIA. Logistic regression analysis revealed that chronic insomnia, BMI, diabetes, surgical diagnosis, type of operation, surgical duration, bleeding, and postoperative pain were independent risk factors of postoperative sleep disturbances. This analysis also showed that nerve block and dexmedetomidine dose in PCIA were significant protective factors of postoperative sleep disturbances.ConclusionChronic insomnia, BMI, diabetes, surgical diagnosis, type of operation, surgical duration, bleeding, and postoperative pain are independent risk factors of postoperative sleep disturbances in elderly patients. Nerve block and the dose of dexmedetomidine in PCIA are protective.Trial registrationChiCTR2000035169; retrospectively registered on 01.08.2020.