Prevalence of insomnia and use of sleep medicines in urban communities of Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: to assess the prevalence of insomnia, its associated factors and the use of sleep medicines. methods: the cross-sectional survey of 1488 adults from five urban and semi urban communities of karachi, pakistan, was conducted from august 2007 to july 2008. all face-to-face interviews were conducted in urdu and data was entirely based on self-reported information by the respondents. data was analysed using stata 10.1. results: of the total, 466 (31.3%) respondents reported insomnia out of which 141 (30.2%) reported using sleep medicines. these medicines were most frequently prescribed by some family physician (114/141; 80.8%). the odds of having insomnia were three times as likely if someone scored positive for psychological distress (or 3.09; ci 2.30 - 4.15) and two times as likely if he/she was troubled by health related issues (or = 2.40; ci 1.84 - 3.13) or had been exposed to adverse events (or = 2.02; ci 1.18 - 3.45). those who experienced financial problems were 59% more likely to report sleep problems (or = 1.59; ci 1.20 - 2.12). gender, age, income or occupational status were not found to be associated with insomnia, but married persons tended to enjoy better sleep conclusion: every third respondent reported insomnia and one-third of these were taking a sleeping pill prescribed by a family physician. married people enjoyed better sleep. gender, age or income was not associated with sleep difficulties.