Investigating the impact of sleep patterns on the quality of life of people with rheumatoid arthritis

Disease - Rheumatoid arthritis

Lead applicant - Dr John McBeth

Organisation - University of Manchester

Type of grant - Project Grant

Status of grant - Active

Amount of the original award - £249,990.60

Start date - 4 April 2016

Reference - 21188

Public Summary

What are the aims of this research?

Health related quality of life (HRQoL) is the effect a person's health has on how well they feel. It has been suggested that lack of sleep can contribute to poor HRQoL. People with rheumatoid arthritis often experience disrupted sleep which may affect their HRQoL. This study will investigate the sleep patterns of people with rheumatoid arthritis and examine whether disrupted sleep patterns are associated with poor HRQoL, and whether this changes according to gender or age.

Why is this research important?

Improving HRQoL for people with rheumatoid arthritis is difficult because even when the disease is well controlled, a significant amount of people still report poor HRQoL. Disrupted sleep may be an important contributing factor to this however, since sleep patterns can potentially be changed. However, first it is necessary to identify which parts of sleep are disrupted and whether they are the reason why some people with rheumatoid arthritis have poor HRQoL.

Previous studies have just asked patients about how they think they have slept however this study will be combining this information with data obtained from electronically monitoring the participants throughout their sleep. This information could then be used to improve the quality of life for a large number of people living with rheumatoid arthritis.

How will the findings benefit patients?

This study will improve our understanding of common problematic sleep patterns associated with rheumatoid arthritis, and as a result may lead to new measures to improve sleep patterns for these patients, thereby increasing their HRQoL.