Fibromyalgia and a study on insomnia

M.P. Martinez and colleagues published a study on: “Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia and sleep hygiene in fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial”. I’m very glad, they published this study, as sleep is a major issue in patients suffering from fibromyalgia. “Sixty-four FM women with insomnia were randomly assigned to the CBT-I or the SH groups, …”. The authors found out that the group on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) did better than the self help group. “The CBT-I group reported significant improvements at post-treatment in several sleep variables, fatigue, daily functioning, pain catastrophizing, anxiety and depression.” So it seems a good idea that CBT is also addressing insomnia, which would be the case in most therapeutic settings. “The SH group only improved significantly in subjective sleep quality.” But I think that self help measures have a place. Though CBT yields better results, finding a psychologist might prove difficult. So in the meantime one can already start doing the right thing, trying to enhance sleep quality and therefore use self help measure.

Links:
Recommendations for a sound sleep 2.0: http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2013/06/recommendations-for-sound-sleep-20.html
Study by M.P. Martinez: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23744045