Does smoking impair sleep hygiene?

Background: Sleep architecture and sleep hygiene might be disrupted by several pathogenetic mechanisms, and the effect of smoking has not been evaluated.

Objective: To investigate the effect of smoking on sleep hygiene behaviors that might be associated with the deterioration of quality-of-life (QoL) parameters.

Methods: In a prospective cross-sectional study, smokers (n=114) and nonsmokers (n=119) were included. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality İndex (PSQI), the Epworth Daytime Sleepiness Scale (ESS), the Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI), and the Short Form-36 quality of life scale (SF-36) were applied.

Results: We found that none of the components, as well as the PSQI total score were affected in smokers compared with the nonsmoker controls (65.5% of smokers had poor sleep compared to 62.5% of nonsmokers). Although smokers tend to get out of bed at different times from day to day and do important work before bedtime (components of the SHI) more often than non-smokers, no significant differences were detected between groups in any component and SHI total score (27.91±6.72 for smokers and 29.23±8.0 for non-smokers). ESS, depression and anxiety symptoms, and SHI scores in smokers with poor sleep quality were significantly different compared with smokers that had normal sleep quality. Both PSQI and SHI scores were inversely associated with QoL parameters.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that smoking by itself is not associated with poor sleep hygiene or sleep quality. It can be concluded that worse SHI and quality of sleep negatively affect QoL, depression, and anxiety in smokers.