[Regularly employed inpatient group sleep deprivation therapy assessed by nursing staff and patients]

The antidepressive efficacy of sleep-deprivation therapy has been well known for more than 20 years and has repeatedly been demonstrated in clinical trials. In spite of its proven merits, the method is rarely used as an established element of antidepressant therapy in Swiss psychiatric hospitals. This study includes 56 depressive patients having had a total of 341 partial sleep-deprivation treatments at the psychiatric hospital of Königsfelden (CH). The results suggest that sleep-deprivation therapy could be incorporated on an large scale in the clinical treatment of depression.