TY  - JOUR
T1  - Insomnia and its treatment should be given more importance
JF  - British Journal of General Practice
JO  - Br J Gen Pract
SP  - 344
LP  - 345
DO  - 10.3399/bjgp23X734421
VL  - 73
IS  - 733
AU  - Waterman, Lauren
AU  - Selsick, Hugh
Y1  - 2023/08/01
UR  - http://bjgp.org/content/73/733/344.abstract
N2  - Progress has been made in the UK in addressing the lack of parity of esteem between mental and physical health. However, chronic insomnia, one of the most common mental disorders,1 appears to have been side-lined. The launch of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in 2008 increased treatment of common mental disorders but, despite its prevalence, insomnia is not included in that list.2Chronic insomnia is a persistent, subjective disturbance in initiating or maintaining sleep, despite adequate opportunity, which results in daytime impairment or clinically significant distress. Transient sleep disturbances have the potential to develop into chronic insomnia, and various factors increase the risk of this progression. These factors include physical illness, mental health disorders, shift- work, social deprivation, being from an ethnic minority background, being female, and advancing age.3Chronic insomnia is common, with a worldwide prevalence of around 10% in the general population and 50% in primary care patients.1 This is at least as common as illnesses that receive a larger share of healthcare resources in many countries. Insomnia impacts quality of life as severely as major depression and heart failure do.4 It increases the risk of developing new mental illnesses such as depression in people with no psychiatric history, exacerbates the severity of other psychiatric disorders, and reduces the efficacy of their treatment.5 It can persist long after the comorbid mental illness has resolved and later precipitate its relapse.5 Insomnia also contributes to road traffic accidents and increases the risk of developing physical illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and heart failure, with greater health risks in …
ER  -