TAIPEI, Taiwan, May 23 (UPI) -- A study by Taiwan's Taipei City Psychiatric Center has said well-educated women are less likely to experience insomnia than other women.
The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, said the case was opposite for men -- the better educated a man is, the more likely he is to experience insomnia.
Dr. Ying-Yeh Chen based the findings on a nationally representative Taiwanese survey on social trends, involving nearly 40,000 people aged 15 and older. Questions included marital status, employment/occupation, educational attainment, and household income, as well as the number of family members under the age of 15. Insomnia was assessed using criteria developed by the World Health Organization, and scored on a scale of 1 to 5.
The researchers said insomnia was more common among those who were older, divorced/separated, had low educational attainment, poor health, or low income. Children living at home also increased the rates of insomnia. Rates of insomnia were found to be significantly higher among women, who averaged 1.22 more points on the insomnia scale than men.
