title: Current status of sleep quality in Taiwan: a nationwide walk-in survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Sleep disorder plays an important role in the overall health care system, because it can be co-morbid with many other physical or mental disorders. In this study, we conducted a screening survey to determine the current status of sleep quality in the general population of Taiwan.
  
  
  METHODS
  During the period 1 March 2010 to 30 April 2013, we collaborated with the Fo-Guang Shan Compassion Foundation's Mentality Protection Center (MPC) branches to conduct 53 walk-in screenings at the 59 branches distributed throughout Taiwan. We used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to assess multiple dimensions of sleep over a 1-month period after identifying the participants' age, sex, and residence location. The participants were identified to have poor sleep quality if their PSQI-T total score was greater than five.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In total, 760 participants, 195 from northern, 289 from central, 228 from southern, and 48 from eastern Taiwan with an average age of 54.2 years (SD 14.7) were recruited. We found that 46.6 % of all participants had poor sleep quality and that there were significantly different proportions among the four areas. Besides, 11.6 % of all participants and 21.8 % of individuals with poor sleep quality had used sedatives/hypnotics to help them fall asleep in the past 4 weeks, and the proportion was highest in the eastern area.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This survey suggested that the ratio of poor sleep quality in Taiwan is progressively increasing compared to the previous studies. In addition, there were significantly different proportions of individuals with poor sleep quality and hypnotics' uses among the four areas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan ; Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan ; Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan ; Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shu-Yu
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Tai
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wen-Fu
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan ; Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan ; Department of and Master's Program in Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yuan-Han
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Yang
keywords: Hypnotics; PSQI; Sleep quality; Taiwan; Walk-in screen