Background: Sleep disturbance is associated with poorer outcomes in cardiac patients, but little is known about the independent role of sleep quality in coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients.
Purpose: This study aims to examine the relationship between preoperative sleep complaints and post-operative emotional and physical recovery in CABG surgery patients, independently of demographic, clinical and mood factors.
Methods: Two hundred thirty CABG patients (aged 67.81 ± 9.07 years) completed measures of self-reported sleep complaints before surgery and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), physical symptoms and pain 2 months after surgery.
Results: Greater sleep complaints prior to surgery were associated with greater physical symptoms, poorer physical HRQoL and greater sensory pain after surgery (p < 0.05), but not with affective pain or mental HRQoL. Preoperative mood was not able to explain these associations.
Conclusions: Sleep complaints may be implicated in physical recovery from CABG surgery but further work is needed to understand the role of causal pathways.