Tackling insomnia: diagnostic and treatment issues in primary care

Primary care physicians are often the first healthcare providers to encounter insomnia in their patients. However, they face many obstacles to diagnosis and treatment of insomnia that stem from patient- and physician-related factors. During consultations, most patients do not mention their sleep difficulties because they believe that insomnia is a trivial concern that does not have serious health consequences. Physicians also face diagnostic obstacles related to conflicting or vague diagnostic definitions, office-based time constraints, and a lack of training in sleep medicine in medical school and residency programs. Once a diagnosis is made, initiating appropriate treatment is also complicated because of outdated treatment guidelines and US Food and Drug Administration prescribing constraints. These factors may have contributed to the perception that there are no good treatment options for insomnia and that all available medications have a poor risk-benefit ratio. For example, benzodiazepines are known to carry a risk of tolerance and abuse. Until recently, few long-term data were available on the safety and efficacy of current agents, which may have contributed to reticence to treat chronic insomnia. Furthermore, there is limited evidence that treating insomnia is associated with improved patient outcomes, and this may have discouraged active treatment programs for insomnia. Increased awareness that insomnia can precede and exacerbate coexisting illnesses, including depression and chronic pain syndromes, is needed. As data emerge from recent clinical trials with newer, promising nonbenzodiazepine medications, it should become easier for primary care physicians to take a proactive role in diagnosing and treating insomnia and thus improve patient functioning.