Background: Sleep is one of the most important physiologic cycles. Nearly every metabolic disorder, especially diabetes mellitus, can affect the quality and quantity of sleep. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the quality and quantity of sleep and diabetes.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, data of 3559 participants aged 20 to 70 years were collected from Yazd Health Study (YaHS) using the Pittsburgh sleep quality index questionnaire and diabetes was defined by the fasting plasma glucose level. Data were analyzed using the chi-square test and logistic regression analysis with SPSS software version 18.

Results: From a total of 3559 participants, 49.5% were males. Ten percent of males and 13.5% of females had diabetes. The mean age of participants was 45.0±2.31 years, the lowest rate of diabetes was in people aged between 20 and 29 years (1.7%), and the highest was in those aged 60 to 69 years (29.6%). The duration of sleep, number of nightmares, taking sleeping pills, number of unwanted waking-up (P&le0.0001) showed a statistically significant association with diabetes. The participants with the sleep duration of less than 6 and more than 10 hours per night had 7.49% and 12.44% chance of developing diabetes, respectively. Approximately, half of the participants had impaired quantity and quality of sleep and one-third of them had a chance of developing diabetes.

Conclusion: According to the results of the study, it is important to improve the quantity and quality of sleep in order to prevent and control diabetes.