Abstract
Sleep hygiene instruction in conjunction with drug treatment is important for insomnia in the elderly. Community pharmacies can contribute to the improvement of insomnia symptoms by providing sleep hygiene instruction to elderly patients with insomnia. However, there are limited reports analyzing the sleep habits of elderly patients who visit community pharmacies and are taking sleeping pills, as well as their attitudes and conditions regarding taking their pills. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire on attitudes toward sleeping pills and lifestyle habits for good sleep in elderly patients. The subjects were 428 patients aged 65 years or older who were taking sleeping pills. The analysis was performed with the mean value of the constituent variables of each concept as the explanatory variable and “insomnia group or non-insomnia group” as the objective variable. The results showed 35.5％ of patients were classified in the insomnia group despite taking sleeping pills. In terms of lifestyle habits, being unable or unlikely to “keep the same waking time,” “get out of bed in the morning even if unable to sleep,” and “avoid thinking in bed or make efforts to sleep” as well as strong refusal to take sleep medication showed an association with insomnia. Hence, it is important for community pharmacies to provide medication instruction that takes into consideration teaching lifestyle habits for good sleep and resolving the sense of refusal to take sleep medication.
