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| Background | Review of Current Practice | Sleep Assessment | Sleep Management Tools & Techniques | Hypnotic Withdrawal Programme | Sleep Consultation | Final Assessment | Contact Us |
| Section home → | Benefits for patients & → practitioners | Hypnotic prescribing → | Patient & practitioner → views | How we developed → the evidence | Self Assessment |
| Practitioner Beliefs → | What Patients Said → | What Patients Need → | What Practitioners Need to Understand |
What patients said they needed
→ Listening, empathy, taking the problem seriously
→ Health beliefs: concerns about sleep tablets vs. need for help
→ Previous self-help: what they have tried already: OTC, complementary
→ Careful assessment
→ Problem focused therapy: including CBT-i
→ Patients had tried to resolve insomnia themselves, often for months or years.
→ Consulting was often a last resort and by the time they consulted patients felt they needed to convince
→ Practitioners that their sleep difficulties were serious and that a sleeping tablet was the only available option.
References
Dyas JV et al. Patients’ and clinicians’ experiences of consultations in primary care for sleep problems and insomnia: a focus group study. BJGP 2010; 60: 329 -333