An assessment of sleep quality in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty before and after surgery

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the sleep quality of patients who underwent total knee arthroplasty before and after the surgery and analyze the effect of total knee arthroplasty on sleep quality. Methods: The study included 42 patients (32 females, 10 males) who underwent total knee arthroplasty for primary knee osteoarthritis. For each patient the preoperative 1 day and postoperative 3 months results of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and 100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS) were compared. Results: The preoperative mean PSQI was 9. VAS score decreased in 97.6% of the patients, while sleep quality increased in 78.6%. 85.7% of the patients reported to have less episodes of pain related sleep disturbances. While both the PSQI and VAS improved after the surgery, there was no correlation between the parameters (p>0.05). Conclusion: Our results suggested that total knee arthroplasty surgery relieves pain and improves sleep quality. The improvement in sleep quality does not appear to be related to pain relief.