Quality of sleep assessment in patients with cancer pain

Introduction: Cancer is ranked as the third cause of death in Mexico. Cancer patients have pain and disturbances in sleep quality. Purpose: To evaluate sleep's quality in patients with cancer pain. Materials and methods: The study compared two groups. Group A, cancer pain patients (n = 30), and Group B, healthy subjects (control group) (n = 30). Demographics, sleep quality (using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, PSQI), somnolence (Epworth Questionnaire), pain intensity (using the visual analogue scale [VAS] and verbal rating scale [VRS]), depression and anxiety (using the Beck questionnaires) were considered as variables. Results: Pain cancer patients reported mean pain intensity (VAS) of 4 +/- 1. Patients with advanced cancer reported higher pain intensity. In Group A the PSQI reported a score of 10 +/- 5, in Group B the PSQI had a score of 6 +/- 3 (p = 0.002). Somnolence reported significant differences (p = 0.01). Conclusions: Our results suggest a relationship between sleep disorders, cancer pain and cancer stage.