ArticleBMJ open2017
How are age-related differences in sleep quality associated with health outcomes? An epidemiological investigation in a UK cohort of 2406 adults.
Article in BMJ open, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 111 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
111 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Optimal exercise type and dose to improve sleep quality in older adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.BMC geriatrics · 2025Pooled it
- The Effect of Superficial Heat-Cold Application on the Sleep Quality of Patients With Restless Leg Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nursing open · 2024Pooled it
- Contactless Technologies, Sensors, and Systems for Cardiac and Respiratory Measurement during Sleep: A Systematic Review.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Pooled it
- Sleep Quality and Aging: A Systematic Review on Healthy Older People, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Feasibility of brief behavioral telehealth interventions for sleep and pain in adults with chronic musculoskeletal orofacial pain: An idiographic clinical trial.Cranio : the journal of craniomandibular practice · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Prediction of antioxidant capacity, age, and sex on sleep impairment in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Sleep Quality and Falls Risk in the ELSA Study: A Cross-Sectional and Prospective Cohort Study.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Associations between shift work, sleep quality and menstrual disorders among nurses: a cross-sectional analysis study.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Associations between perceived discrimination and sleep health: Results from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Young Adult Sleep Study.Sleep health · 2026Article
- Fifteen years on: a review of the Cam-CAN study of the cognitive neuroscience of ageing.GeroScience · 2026Review
- The multidimensional effects of sleep quality in young adults: the relationship between auditory performance, sound tolerance, and anxiety.European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology : official journal of the European Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (EUFOS) : affiliated with the German Society for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology - Head and Neck Surgery · 2026Article
- Impulsivity as a dynamic mechanism linking young adult sleep and drinking behavior during naturally occurring drinking episodes.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2026Article
- An explainable machine learning model for predicting depressive symptoms among Chinese older adults with chronic diseases.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sleep and Subjective Age: A Narrative Review of Epidemiological Evidence, Underlying Mechanisms, and Population Differences.Nature and science of sleep · 2026Review
- Better Sleep Better Psychological Well-Being Among Older Adults: Evidence From the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS).Journal of aging research · 2026Article
- Brain signature of sleep quality.Sleep · 2025Article
- Physical exercise moderates the mediating effect of depressive symptoms between sleep quality and suicidal ideation among college students.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sleep health profiles across six population-based cohorts and recommendations for validating clustering models.Sleep health · 2025Article
51 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo examine age-related differences in self-reported sleep quality and their associations with health outcomes across four domains: physical health, cognitive health, mental health and neural health.
settingCambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) is a cohort study in East Anglia/England, which collected self-reported health and lifestyle questions as well as a range of objective measures from healthy adults.
participants2406 healthy adults (age 18-98) answered questions about their sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)) and measures of physical, cognitive, mental and neural health. A subset of 641 individuals provided measures of brain structure.
main outcome measuresPSQI scores of sleep and scores across tests within the four domains of health. Latent class analysis (LCA) is used to identify sleep types across the lifespan. Bayesian regressions quantify the presence, and absence, of relationships between sleep quality and health measures.
resultsBetter self-reported sleep is generally associated with better health outcomes, strongly so for mental health, moderately for cognitive and physical health, but not for sleep quality and neural health. LCA identified four sleep types: 'good sleepers' (68.1%, most frequent in middle age), 'inefficient sleepers' (14.01%, most frequent in old age), 'delayed sleepers' (9.28%, most frequent in young adults) and 'poor sleepers' (8.5%, most frequent in old age). There is little evidence for interactions between sleep quality and age on health outcomes. Finally, we observe U-shaped associations between sleep duration and mental health (depression and anxiety) as well as self-reported general health, such that both short and long sleep were associated with poorer outcomes.
conclusionsLifespan changes in sleep quality are multifaceted and not captured well by summary measures, but instead should be viewed as as partially independent symptoms that vary in prevalence across the lifespan. Better self-reported sleep is associated with better health outcomes, and the strength of these associations differs across health domains. Notably, we do not observe associations between self-reported sleep quality and white matter.
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