Abstract
Introduction
Chronic nausea and vomiting (CNV), common symptoms in patients with GI disorders like gastroparesis, can be a debilitating health problem with considerable impact on patients’ health-related quality of life during daytime. Yet, little is known about how CNV may impact on sleepiness and fatigue during the daytime. Our aim was to examine the impact of CNV on daytime sleepiness and fatigue based on the data from a longitudinal study.
Methods
Prospective longitudinal study with two waves: 12,218 subjects interviewed by phone during wave 1 (W1); 10,931 during wave 2 (W2) three years later. The sample was representative of the US general population. Analyses included subjects participating to both waves (N=10,931). CNV was defined as episodes of nausea and vomiting occurring at least twice a month for at least 1 month (outside pregnancy). Logistic regression models were employed to determine whether CNV is a predictive variable for excessive sleepiness or fatigue.
Results
Out of all W1 participants, 9.8% (95% CI: 9.2%-10.4%) reported nausea only while 3% (95% CI: 2.7%-3.3%) reported CNV. In W2, 7.7% (95% CI: 7.2%-8.2%) reported nausea only and 2.5% (95% CI: 2.2%-2.8%) reported having CNV. Of the subjects who participated in both W1 and W2, 25.7% of them reported CNV in W1. CNV subjects reported more frequently excessive daytime sleepiness (53.5% vs. 25.9%) and being moderately or severely fatigued (38.6% vs, 5.4%) compared with the participants without nausea or vomiting. After controlling for age, sex, BMI, health status, alcohol intake, sleep disorders and psychiatric disorders that might impact on daytime sleepiness or fatigue, it was found that subjects with CNV at both W1 and W2 had a significantly higher relative risk of reporting daytime sleepiness (RR: 2.7 (95% CI:1.9–3.9) p<0.0001) and fatigue (RR: 4.9 (95% CI:3.2–7.5) p<0.0001) at W2, compared with the participants without nausea or vomiting.
Conclusion
Many factors are likely to influence daytime sleepiness. CNV appears to be an important contributor even after controlling for several factors that can explain the sleepiness. This underlines the extent to which alertness could be disturbed and impacted by chronicity of nausea/vomiting symptoms.
Support (if any)
This analysis study was funded by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company
A longitudinal study over 40 years to study the metabolic syndrome as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases