Sleep disorders and hypnotic agents: medical, social and economical impact

Insomnia is a subjective complaint relating to approximately 30% of the adult population in France, described by the patient as a difficulty of initiating and/or maintaining sleep. Its prevalence increases with age and sex: women are more affected than men (24% vs 14%). Insomnia is either occasional (20%), or chronic (10%). Chronic insomnia has an important impact on patients' everyday life e.g. fatigue, perturbed diurnal waking state, impaired quality-of-life... which results in lower work productivity and drowsiness as well as relational difficulties, absenteeism. About 80% of patients consult their general practitioner first. The aim of a hypnotic agent is to obtain sleep as physiological as possible. Benzodiazepines and benzodiazepines-like agents (zopiclone, zolpidem, zaleplon) are the most widely used hypnotics. However, their indications must be limited to occasional insomnia with a limited duration: less than four weeks. There is no advantage with using a combination of hypnotic agents, a practice which should be prohibited. Adverse effects can be serious, e.g. diurnal somnolence associated with risks of road accidents and, in the elderly, the risk of falls. After chronic use, hypnotics can be addictive, as their effects wear off in three to four weeks. After withdrawal, insomnia rebound is frequent. Use of hypnotics in association with alcohol is a well-known drug-addiction behavior. According to the French health insurance fund, 9% of the general population use hypnotics and about half of them regularly. Insurance refunds for hypnotics and sedatives reach more than 110 million euros annually. The efficiency of hypnotics wears off, quickly for benzodiazepines (three - four weeks), or less quickly for zopiclone and zolpidem (a few months). Insomnia is a major public health issue, each year 10% of the incident cases of insomnia treated by hypnotics joint the group of subjects with chronic insomnia. This failure to treat insomnia properly can be explained, at least in part, by several insufficiencies: physicians and pharmacists training, medical profession awareness, research, public information on the rules of good sleep (public health campaigns, booklets, role of physicians and the pharmacists).     

Sleep quality of medical students and relationships with academic performances

ObjectiveSleep health is a major public health concern because of its correlation with physical and mental health, and it may be particularly altered in medical students. This study aims: i) to examine the sleep characteristics of French medical students and their knowledge about basic sleep hygiene rules and; ii) to examine the correlations between sleep quality and academic performances, as well as between sleep quality and sleep knowledge.MethodsStudents from 4th, 5th and 6th years of medicine, of the Faculty of Paris Diderot, voluntarily responded to an online questionnaire including PSQI and multiple-choice quizzes (MCQ) about basic sleep hygiene rules.ResultsFrom the 177 participants, 49.7% had a poor sleep (PSQI > 5). Regarding sleep latency, 44.6% needed > 30 min to fall asleep at least once a week, 26.5% slept 6 hours or less by night, 42.4% of them qualified their sleep quality as bad or very bad. A serious lack of knowledge about basic sleep hygiene rules was observed, with an average score at the MCQ of 6.61/10, and only 31% of medical students were aware of basic good sleep habits. Significant correlations were observed between sleep efficiency and all academic mean scores (both regarding the morning, afternoon, and pooled mean scores), and between sleep disturbances and the morning mean score.ConclusionsFrench medical students have a poor sleep quality, correlating with academic performances, and present a poor knowledge of basic sleep rules. These findings are a call to improve medical training schedules and to develop prevention and training programs.     

Validation of a data collection set for the psychiatric,addiction, sleep and chronobiological assessments of patients with depression: A Delphi study for the SoPsy-depression French national cohort

ObjectivesDespite international efforts to identify biomarkers of depression, none has been transferred to clinical practice, neither for diagnosis, evolution, nor therapeutic response. This led us to build a French national cohort (through the clinical and research network named SoPsy within the French biological psychiatry society (AFPBN) and sleep society (SFRMS)), to better identify markers of sleep and biological rhythms and validate more homogeneous subgroups of patients, but also to specify the manifestations and pathogeneses of depressive disorders. Before inclusions, we sought to provide a predefined, standardized, and robust set of data to be collected in all centers.MethodsA Delphi process was performed to achieve consensus through the independent rating of invited experts, the SoPsy-depression co-investigators (n = 34). The initial set open for vote included 94 questionnaires targeting adult and child psychiatry, sleep and addiction.ResultsTwo questionnaire rounds were completed with 94% participation in the first round and 100% participation in the second round. The results of the Delphi survey incorporated the consensus opinion of the 32 members who completed both rounds. Nineteen of the 94 questionnaires achieved consensus at the first round and seventy of 75 at the second round. The five remaining questionnaires were submitted to three experts involved in the steering committee during a dedicated meeting. At the end, 24 questionnaires were retained in the mandatory and 26 in the optional questionnaire set.ConclusionsA validated data collection set of questionnaires is now available to assess psychiatry, addiction, sleep and chronobiology dimensions of depressive disorders.