Original ArticleDaytime sleepiness associated with poor sustained attention in middle and late adulthood

• This is the first study to apply psychomotor vigilance task at the population level.• Subjective daytime sleepiness is related to poor sustained attention.• Our findings highlight the importance of healthy sleep on neurocognitive function.

ObjectiveWe aimed to determine the association between psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) performance and sleep-related factors including sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, poor sleep quality, insomnia, and habitual snoring in a population-based sample.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional analysis from the ongoing prospective cohort study, the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study. We measured PVT performance and documented demographics, sleep-related factors, life style, and medical conditions in community dwelling adults (N = 2499; mean age 57.1 ± 7.3; male 1259). Associations between PVT parameters and sleep-related factors were tested, adjusting for age, gender, smoking, alcohol use, education, body mass index, hypertension, diabetes, depression, and the interval between mid-sleep time and PVT test.ResultsHigh Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS, ≥8) was associated with slower mean reciprocal response speed (mean RRT) (3.69 ± 0.02 vs. 3.77 ± 0.01, p < 0.001), higher probability for increased lapses (≥4) (OR 1.48, CI 1.12-1.88, p = 0.001), and more negative RRT slope (−0.036 ± 0.002 vs. −0.030 ± 0.001, p = 0.02). Older age, female gender, low education level, depressive mood, and the interval between mid-sleep and PVT test were also associated with poor performance. Sleep duration, habitual snoring, insomnia, or poor sleep quality (the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score > 5) was not related to PVT parameters.ConclusionsAt the population level, our results revealed important modifiers of PVT performance, which included subjective reports of daytime sleepiness.