SLEEP PROBLEMS AMONG PATIENTS ON METHADONE MAINTENANCE TREATMENT
Keywords:
opioids, methadone-maintained patients, insomnia.Abstract
Insomnia is the most prevalent sleep disorder in the general population, and is commonly encountered in medical practices. Subjective sleep complaints occur in 75-84% of methadone-maintained patients, and more than 50% of methadone-maintained patients reported use of medications to improve their sleep cycle. Studies of insomnia support a female predominance.
The Aim of this study was to evaluate insomnia and gender differences in insomnia among methadone-maintained patients in the Department for prevention and treatment of drug abuse and dependence, Psychiatric Hospital Skopje.
This was a cross-sectional study. Two groups of methadone-maintained patients were included: 73 males and 14 females. Participants were evaluated with Bergen Insomnia Scale (BIS), and Insomnia Severity Index.
The evaluation of subjects with BIS showed that 87.3% of subjects reported some sleep problems. There were significant differences between the groups related to item 3 on BIS with higher mean score for females. The total score for the Insomnia Severity Index scale showed that a larger number of females than males had moderate and severe insomnia. More females than males reported use of medications (90.5% used benzodiazepine), to help them with their sleep problems. Last month 36.8% of subjects used some substances and in 75% of cases it was alcohol, cannabis or both.
This study provided evidence that sleep disturbance and use of alcohol, cannabis, and benzodiazepines was highly prevalent among methadone-maintained patients. Female patients reported a significantly worse sleep cycle than males. Use/abuse of benzodiazepines in methadone-maintained patients does not resolve the problem of insomnia.
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