The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) is seeking PATIENTS for input on the new AASM Behavioral Treatment of INSOMNIA Guidelines
Insomnia is a common disorder affecting about 10% of the population. As part of their effort to update recommendations for treatment they start with a question: which treatments are best to improve symptoms, and which patients should use them? To answer that question, doctors and scientists examine the research to discover how well different therapies work. Like solving a mystery, they collect clues from each clinical study to build the best case for which treatments should be used and which should not. They piece together evidence on symptom improvement as well as negative side effects.
However, there is one important piece of the puzzle that is often missing: What do PATIENTS want from their medical care? How does their condition impact their daily lives? And how can care be improved to meet their needs?
When patients get involved in guideline development, they have the chance to express their opinions and priorities for what they want from their medical care. Your input shapes our research questions so we focus on the symptoms that are most important to you. Then we can collect evidence about how treatments improve those exact symptoms and recommend treatments based on what works and what doesn’t. We also ask patients about the side effects of those treatments to find out what is a tolerable balance of symptom improvement vs. side effects.
What does it involve? It would involve taking part in a phone call and completing a survey: We will be sending you a survey to ask you, representing the average patient, which symptoms are most important to improve and which side effects might be tolerable to reach that improvement. Your responses to this survey indicate the highest priorities of patients so the guideline developers know where to focus their efforts. Once completed, this guideline will advise doctors on the best way to care for patients, and thanks to you, the advice will focus on what patients care about the most.
For further information, please contact: Jon Heald (jheald@aasmnet.org)
"Insomnia" by "Robot Brainz" is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
