Sleep and geriatric syndromes in elderly emergency patients in China: a cross-sectional survey

This study aims to assess the prevalence of abnormal sleep conditions and geriatric syndromes in elderly emergency patients in China and to explore the relationship between them. The convenience sampling method was used to recruit elderly patients in the Emergency Department of Yueyang Central Hospital in Hunan Province from July to November 2023. A total of 205 elderly emergency patients were included. Sleep conditions and four geriatric syndromes (frailty, sarcopenia, malnutrition, and cognitive impairment) were investigated. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between sleep and the four geriatric syndromes. After adjusting for age, gender, marital status, education level, and number of comorbidities, it was found that patients with mild and significant daytime sleepiness were more likely to have frailty than those with no daytime sleepiness (OR = 2.509, <i>p</i> = 0.018; OR = 4.395, <i>p</i> = 0.048). Patients with mild and significant dissatisfaction with sleep quality were more likely to have sarcopenia than those with good sleep quality (OR = 4.153, <i>p</i> = 0.006; OR = 5.955, <i>p</i> = 0.013). Additionally, patients with normal sleep duration had a lower risk of malnutrition than those with insufficient sleep duration (OR = 0.353, <i>p</i> = 0.043), and patients with slight daytime sleepiness had a higher risk of malnutrition than those with no daytime sleepiness (OR = 3.414, <i>p</i> = 0.004). Finally, patients with mild daytime sleepiness were more likely to have cognitive impairment than those without daytime sleepiness (OR = 2.564, <i>p</i> = 0.026). This study indicates that improving sleep may be a favorable factor for controlling geriatric syndromes. However, as the single-center design and convenience sampling restrict generalizability, the results should be validated in multi-center studies using probability sampling.