Cases of chronic insomnia patients treated by group cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia

Abstract

Pharmacotherapy is currently widely used in the treatment of insomnia can be helpful in transient insomnia, but research regarding its effectiveness and safety of long-term use is not enough. Therefore, to complement the limitations of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of patients with insomnia, non-pharmacologic treatment methods (cognitive behavioral therapy; CBT) are used. But CBT for insomnia appear to be costly and time-consuming compared to pharmacotherapy, clinical practice in the field can be difficult to apply. The authors took the format of group therapy rather than individual therapy to complement the disadvantages of CBT and now we would like to have a thought into its meaning by reporting several cases of patients who reduced taking sleeping pills through group CBT. Patients were recruited at Sleep Center of St. Vincent’s hospital, 2 men and 3 women led to a group of five patients. CBT is a treatment for correction factors that cause and maintain insomnia, it includes a variety of techniques such as sleep hygiene education, stimulus control, sleep restriction, relaxation and cognitive therapy. A series of treatment were performed five sessions once a week with a frequency from February to March 2012 and were proceeded for about 1hour and 30 min per session. Results indicated that the subjective quality of sleep and sleep efficiency of all patients improved and PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and BDI (Beck Depression Inventory) were decreased in spite of reducing dose of medication. Like these cases, we can contribute to reduce the time and economic burden by performing group therapy for insomnia CBT rather than individual therapy. Keywords: Insomnia, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Group therapy. Pharmacotherapy There are no conflicts of interests.