Sleep and immune function among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

ABSTRACT

People living with HIV are at increased risk for sleep disturbances. Up to 75% of the HIV-infected individuals in the United States experience sleep disturbances of some kind. Previous studies have suggested an association between patient-reported sleep disturbances and impaired immune function. This study evaluates data obtained via sleep actigraphy to evaluate the relationship between objectively measured sleep, HIV viral load, and immune function. While this study found no relationship between objective sleep and CD4+ T- lymphocyte count, higher sleep efficiency was weakly correlated with lower HIV viral loads, τ_b(93)= −.165, p = .043. More research is warranted to clarify the nature of these relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• CD4+ T- lymphocyte count
• sleep
• viral load
• actigraphy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences: [Grant Number TL1TR002549]; National Institute of Nursing Research: [Grant Number 1T32NR012715].