0314 Oral Contraceptives and Sleep Duration and Timing, Daytime Sleepiness, and Snoring in NHANES 2015-2018. (25th May 2022) - Kennedy, Kathryn
Abstract: Introduction: Oral contraceptives have been associated with psychiatric disorders including depression and anxiety, but few studies have looked at the relationships with sleep health. Methods: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2015-2016 and 2017-2018 waves were examined. Of 6, 335 females aged 44 and under, 308 had used hormonal contraceptives within 30 days of survey completion. These women also self-reported sleep and wake times and usual sleep duration on weekdays. They also reported snoring frequency, with answer choices ranging from "never" to "1-2 nights per week", "3-4 nights/week", or ">5 nights/week". Lastly, they reported how often they felt overly sleepy during the day, with answer choices ranging from "never", to "once/month", "2-4 times/month", "5-15 times a month", or "16-30 times/month". Linear and logistic regression analyses were adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, education, employment status, marital status, and income. Results: Contraceptive users were more likely to be white, more highly educated, with higher income, employed, and never married. There were no differences by severity of depression symptoms between users and non-users according to PHQ-9 score. Contraceptive use was not associated with self-reported sleep duration in unadjusted or adjusted linear models (p=0.502 and p=0.146, respectively). Contraceptive use was also not a significant correlate of time to bed, time out of bed, time in bed, or midpoint of sleep in either unadjusted and adjusted linear models. In unadjusted logistic regression models, individuals who reported sleepiness "sometimes" or "often" were about twice as likely to be contraceptive users (OR=1.98, p=0.0023; and OR=1.87, p=0.0084, respectively). These associations were no longer significant after adjusting for covariates. In unadjusted logistic regression models, individuals with frequent snoring had 50% lower odds of contraceptive use (OR=0.50, p=0.0023), but similarly, there were no associations after adjusting for covariates. Conclusion: Oral contraceptive use did not appear to be related to habitual sleep parameters, after adjusting for sociodemographic covariates in these analyses. However, further investigation must look at both objective measures and larger samples. Support (If Any):