P0193 - The relation between insomnia and chronic fatigue syndrome

Abstract

The current study investigated the possible association between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and insomnia. A non-clinical sample of 450 volunteer Kuwaiti male and female college students was recruited. Their ages ranged from 18 to 39 years. They completed the Arabic Scale of CFS (ASCFS) and the Arabic Scale of Insomnia (ASI). Both have good reliability and validity. Women had significantly a higher mean score on the ASCFS than did their male counterparts. All the correlations between the total scores of the ASCFS and the ASI, consisting of 12 items and the total scores were statistically significant (p < 0.01) in men and women. However, the correlations between the ASI items belonging to the factor of “Consequences of insomnia” were higher than those with the items belonging to the factor “Difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep”. The multiple stepwise regression indicated that the best insomnia complaint to predict CFS was the item “My interrupted sleep affects my work performance”. This item explained approximately 25% of variance in CFS scores. It was concluded that CFS and insomnia share specific common elements.