The influence of bed-partners on sleep disturbance

An experimental investigation into the effects of sleeping with a bed-partner on the sleep of subjects living beneath flight paths in the UK was carried out as part of a main study into aircraft noise and sleep disturbance. The main aim of the investigation was to quantify the amount of disturbance attributable to sleeping with a bed-partner in the home using actigraphy. A secondary aim was to assess the importance of usual sleeping arrangement as a factor in sleep research. The sleep of 400 main study subjects was measured in 30 sec epochs, for 15 consecutive nights each, using Gaehwiler actigraphs. The bed-partners of 46 of the main study subjects were monitored concurrently, for 8 of the 15 nights. Subjective sleep reports were filled out for each night of the study, and general questionnaire data on sleep and related factor was also obtained. Actigraph data was filtered before analysis to show onsets of movement, resulting in a series of actiblips for each subject trace. [Continues.]