Abstract
Introduction
The effects of hormonal contraceptives on sleep has been matter of debate in current literature. While some articles observed a sleep promoting effect and reduced sleep disordered breathing, others have failed to detect any result or even detected a worse sleep pattern in women using hormonal contraception. As the literature has been growing on this field, a systematic review is necessary to gather and compare all the studies in a comprehensive way.
Methods
A bibliographic search was conducted in Pubmed, Scopus and Web of Science. Studies were selected first based on titles and abstracts, followed by full text analysis and data extraction. Only original studies evaluating women using hormonal contraception were considered eligible. Both objective and subjective sleep-related outcomes were extracted for analyzes. Individual effect size for each articles was calculated using regular or standardized mean differences and meta-analyses were conducted using a DerSimonian and Laird random effects model.
Results
After the bibliographic search, 1787 non-duplicated articles were included in our initial data screening. Articles sample was reduced to 114 records after abstract screening and to ten studies after full text analyses. The following sleep outcomes were eligible for meta-analysis: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI - 3 studies), total time in bed (4), subjective total sleep time (4), objective total sleep time (3), sleep latency (6), sleep efficiency (6). None of them resulted in statistically significant effects of contraceptive use and the effect size ± 95% interval of confidence overlapped the zero value.
Conclusion
Hormonal contraceptives is not associated to any alteration in sleep patterns in women. This conclusion should be restricted to a general framework, since our sample does not allowed stratified analyses. Future studies should consider the effect of specific hormonal composition (ex.: combined vs. progestogen-only contraceptives) and administration route (contraceptive pills vs. levonorgestrel intrauterine device).
Support
AFIP, CAPES, CNPq