[Patients of an ambulatory sleep center--critical variables of insomniacs]

The following study presents results of a broad diagnostical screening for 128 insomniacs, which includes polysomnography, sleep-wake diaries and psychosometrical testing. It was our special aim to investigate about critical but not classical variables for insomnia, which had been mentioned in sleep literature before. We therefore focused on hypotheses about the meaning of state 1 sleep (according to Zorick et al. 1984) and the number of REM-Non-REM Cycles (according to Rüther et al. 1985) for the diagnosis of insomnia. Statistical analysis (t-Test, p = 0.05) showed that patients with less than 3 REM-Non-REM Cycles consumed significantly more hypnotics during 6 months before the sleep examination. Moreover it was obvious (Chi-Square, p = 0.001) that more than 50% of insomniacs with organic causes presented less than 3 cycles, whereas the latter was true only for 1 patient with primary insomnia. Although results were not as strong for the "state-1 sleep variable", we find that these non-classical sleep variables should be sincerely regarded within the future context of the diagnosis of insomnia.