Contribution of Sleep Disruption and Sedentary Behavior to Fatigue in Survivors of Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplant.

BACKGROUND: Fatigue is a prominent quality of life concern among recipients of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT).
PURPOSE: The present study investigated whether objectively measured sleep efficiency and sedentary behavior are related to greater reports of fatigue.
METHODS: Eighty-two allogeneic HCT recipients who were 1-5 years post-transplant and returning for a follow-up visit participated (age M = 56, 52% female, 56% leukemia). They wore an actigraph assessing sleep efficiency and sedentary behavior for one week and completed an electronic log assessing fatigue each evening during the same period.
RESULTS: Twenty-six percent of patients reported clinically meaningful fatigue. On average, fatigue was mild (M = 2.5 on 0-10 scale, SD = 2.0), sleep was disturbed (sleep efficiency M = 78.9%, SD = 8.9), and patients spent the majority of time in sedentary (M = 55.4%, SD = 10.2) or light (M = 35.9%, SD = 8.6) activity. Multilevel model analysis of between-person differences indicated that patients who experienced less efficient sleep the previous evening provided greater evening reports of average fatigue, b = -0.06, 95% CI (-0.11, -0.01). Similarly, within-person analyses indicated that when patients experienced less efficient sleep the previous evening or were more sedentary as compared to their average, they provided greater evening reports of average fatigue, b = -0.02, 95% CI (-0.05, -0.004); b = 4.46, 95% CI (1.95, 6.97), respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings demonstrate that poor sleep and daily sedentary behavior are related to evening reports of fatigue and should be considered modifiable targets for intervention. © Society of Behavioral Medicine 2021. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.