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Understanding older peoples’ decisions about the use of sleeping medication: issues of control and autonomy
Author(s) -
Venn Susan,
Arber Sara
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2012.01468.x
Subject(s) - autonomy , medical prescription , older people , sleep (system call) , quality of life (healthcare) , gerontology , everyday life , perception , psychology , medicine , nursing , political science , neuroscience , computer science , law , operating system
Poor sleep is known to impact on health and wellbeing in later life and has implications for the ability of older people to remain active during the day. Medical treatments for chronic poor sleep have primarily included the regular, long‐term prescribing of hypnotics, which are known to impact on older people’s health, cognitive function and quality of life. Therefore, recent policy and practice has focused on reducing such prescribing, on encouraging older people to stop taking long‐term hypnotics and on finding alternative, non‐pharmacological ways to manage poor sleep. However, little research has been undertaken to understand the perspectives of older people who choose not to seek professional help for their poor sleep, despite the potential impact of poor sleep on their health and ability to remain active. Through in‐depth interviews with 62 older men and women living in their own homes in England, this article explores the factors that deter older people from seeking professional help for their poor sleep. We argue that these are located in their perceptions of the normativity of poor sleep in later life, their beliefs about prescription sleeping medications and their desire to maintain control and autonomy over their everyday and night lives.