With the aging and life expectancy increasing in China, sleep disorders in the elderly (≥80 years old) have received widespread attention. As one of the common problems, sleep disorders seriously affect the quality of life and physical and mental health among the elderly, and can also aggravate or induce multiple diseases.

To conduct a scoping review of studies on sleep disorders in community dwelling older adults over 80 years and provide guidance for the early diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders in community dwelling older adults in China.

PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, OpenGrey, SinoMed, CNKI, Wanfang Data, and VIP databases were searched for literature on sleep disorders in community dwelling older adults from inception to March 15, 2023. Literature was independently screened by 2 investigators and basic characteristics of the literature were extracted (authors, time of publication, country, type of study, sample size, assessment tool or modality, prevalence, findings) .

A total of 10 486 papers were searched, and 21 papers were finally included, of which 14 were in English and 7 were in Chinese, 16 were cross-sectional studies, 2 were quasi-experiment studies and 3 were longitudinal studies. The results of the analysis indicated that sleep disorders were more prevalent with serious adverse effects in the community dwelling older adults aged over 80 years (the prevalence rate ranged from 10.0% to 60.3%), which were assessed by nine tools or modalities, including three structured scales with the more commonly used scale being Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The influencing factors of sleep disorders were divided into three categories of social demographic factors, physical health and disease-related factors, psychological and behavioral characteristic factors. Interventions such as music therapy, therapy combined with interaction mode groups were found to be effective in improving sleep disorders. However, few prevention and intervention studies were conducted.

The high prevalence of sleep disorders among older people in the community is high with serious effects, there is insufficient knowledge about sleep disorders among community dwelling older adults and fewer types of assessment tools lacking specificity in China. The influencing factors of sleep disorders among older people are complex and diverse, with a lack of research on prevention and intervention.