The purpose of this study was to identify sleep disorder experience in older patients living in the community and acknowledging being depressed.

For this study, 11 older patients with depression were purposively chosen. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews from July 2013 to January 2014 and analyzed in terms of by Giorgi's phenomenological methodology.

The study results showed that sleep disorder experience in older patients with depression consisted of sixteen themes and five themes-clusters: 1) exposure of the causes of sleep disorders; 2) life is painful; 3) harassing themselves and their family; 4) difficulty in controlling themselves; 5) trying to deal with the sleep disorder to overcome the situation.

It is necessary to develop educational guidelines for patients with sleep disorders or nursing interventions that anyone can easily provide for elders in the communities. The first priority should be given to efforts to apply diverse methods to improve sleep hygiene and minimize the period of exposure to medication before starting medication for patients with sleep disorders.