The structured Diagnostic Interview for Sleep Patterns and Disorders: rationale and initial evaluation

ObjectivesWe aimed to describe and report the initial validity of a newly developed structured interview for sleep disorders (Diagnostic Interview for Sleep Patterns and Disorders DISP]) administered by trained lay interviewers.MethodsA total of 225 patients with various sleep disorders were recruited from two nationally recognized sleep centers in the United States. The International Classification of Sleep Disorders, second edition (ICSD-2) criteria, were used to classify sleep disorders (e.g., delayed sleep phase disorder, hypersomnia, narcolepsy with cataplexy NC], restless legs syndrome RLS], periodic limb movement disorder PLMD], insomnia, rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder RBD], and obstructive sleep apnea OSA]). Interview diagnoses were compared with final diagnoses by sleep specialists (reference diagnosis based on clinical history, examination, and polysomnography PSG] when indicated).ResultsDISP diagnoses had fair to substantial concordance with clinician diagnoses for various sleep disorders, with area under the receiver operator characteristic curves (AUC) ranging from 0.65 to 0.84. Participants classified by the clinician as having a sleep disorder were moderately well-detected (sensitivity ranging from 0.50 for RBD disorder to 0.87 for insomnia). Substantial specificity (>0.8) also was seen for five of the eight sleep disorders (i.e., delayed sleep phase, hypersomnia, NC, PLMD, and RBD). Interviews were more likely than clinicians to detect disorders secondary to the primary sleep problem.ConclusionsThe DISP provides an important tool for the detection of a wide range of sleep disorders in clinical settings and is particularly valuable in the detection of secondary disorders that were not the primary referral diagnosis.