The scales were all self-administered, were designed to take 15 minutes or fewer to complete, and were chosen because they covered the six key aspects of sleep, including sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, sleep-related quality of life, and sleep-disruptive cognitions.
The investigators cited one limitation that might limit the generalizability of their findings: Only outpatients with psychiatric disorders were recruited for the study. Nevertheless, the findings have clinical implications, they wrote. “Identifying a self-report sleep measure that can detect clinically significant insomnia depending on these systems not only provides the clinicians with the ease of administration but also helps them in detecting and treating psychiatric patients whose conditions may be aggravated by the presence of comorbid insomnia,” wrote Lee Seng Esmond Seow, BA, and his colleagues at the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore.
The study was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Health’s National Medical Research Council. No conflicts of interest were declared.
SOURCE: Seow LSE et al. Sleep Med. 2018 Jan;41:86-93.