• Marsida Teliti, Francesco Fanfulla, Laura Croce, Francesca Coperchini, and Mario Rotondi.
• Department of Internal Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Pavia, 27100, Italy; Unit of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Laboratory for Endocrine Disruptors, Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS, Via S. Maugeri 4, Pavia 27100, Italy.
• Eur. J. Intern. Med. 2024 Mar 27.

BackgroundThe relationship between subclinical hypothyroidism (SHYPO) and sleep disturbances is still poorly investigated. This systematic review aims to critically appraise the existing literature to provide more insights in understanding whether SHYPO favors sleep disturbances or it is the sleep disturbance per se that affects the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid axis regulation.MethodsOriginal studies on sleep quality and duration in patients with SHYPO were searched in the PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science and Scopus databases. Two reviewers independently screened articles for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed the quality of included studies.ResultsEight studies, including 2916 patients with SHYPO and 18,574 healthy controls, were retrieved. An overall agreement (7 out of 8 studies), about a positive correlation between decreased sleep quality and/or duration and SHYPO was observed. Five studies investigated sleep quality through self-reported surveys; only two studies explored both subjective and objective assessment of sleep quality with actigraphy (n = 1) or polysomnography (n = 1); finally, one study assessed subjective evaluation of sleep quality through a single question regarding the number of sleeping hours. A high level of heterogeneity among studies was manifest due to differences in population source, sleep measure assessment and criteria for diagnosing SHYPO.DiscussionOverall, the existing literature data suggest a link between SHYPO and sleep disturbances, but further studies on larger populations of patients with homogeneous study designs and outcomes are warranted.Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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