Sleep Quality Assessment in Correlation to Autonomic Nerve Function in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Background and Objective Diabetes mellitus negatively impacts the quality of life of its patients. Autonomic dysfunction may disturb sleep quality by negatively affecting multiple systems, including, but not limited to, the cardiovascular, respiratory, and genitourinary tracts. The current study aims to assess sleep quality and examine the degree of correlation with autonomic nervous function in relatively well-controlled type 2 diabetic patients.Methods This study uses a cross-sectional design to assess sleep quality in 88 type 2 diabetic patients via the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), accordingly dividing them into two groups: good or poor sleepers. Subsequently, the study evaluates autonomic nerves’ conductivity by measuring electrical skin conductance using Sudoscan for the hands and feet.Results Of 88 recruited patients, 53% showed poor sleep quality, with higher incidence in females. Autonomic nerve conductivity showed moderate damage in poor sleepers with 59.53 ± 13.35 μS and 59.68 ± 16.91 μS of hand and foot electrodes, respectively. Autonomic damage induces sleep disturbance mainly through increased nighttime voiding in 91.49% of the poor sleepers group compared to 41.46% in the good sleepers group. PSQI score was found to strongly and inversely correlate with autonomic nerve conductivity via hand electrodes, with a correlation coefficient of -0.62 and a determination coefficient of 0.39.Conclusion Poor sleep quality seems to be a significant problem even in relatively well-controlled type 2 diabetic patients with no diagnosed micro- or macrovascular complications. Autonomic dysfunction negatively affects the quality of sleep and leads to sleep disturbance by increasing nighttime micturition as one of its complications.