Athens insomnia scale | |
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Purpose | measure insomnia |
In medicine, insomnia is measured using the Athens insomnia scale. It was introduced in the year 2000 by a group of researchers [1] from Athens, Greece to assess the insomnia symptoms in patients with sleep disorders.
It is measured by assessing eight factors, five related to nocturnal sleep and three related to daytime dysfunction. These are rated on a 0–3 scale and tabulated into a cumulative score. A score of 6 or higher is used to establish the diagnosis of insomnia. [2]
The Athens insomnia scale is considered to be an effective tool in sleep analysis, and it is validated in various countries by testing it on local patients. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Sleep factors | Athens insomnia scale | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Sleep induction | 0: No problem | 1: Slightly delayed | 2: Markedly delayed | 3: Very delayed or did not sleep at all |
Awakenings during the night | 0: No problem | 1: Minor problem | 2: Considerable problem | 3: Serious problem or did not sleep at all |
Final awakening | 0: Not earlier | 1: A little earlier | 2: Markedly earlier | 3: Much earlier or did not sleep at all |
Total sleep duration | 0: Sufficient | 1: Slightly insufficient | 2: Markedly insufficient | 3: Very insufficient or did not sleep at all |
Sleep quality | 0: Satisfactory | 1: Slightly unsatisfactory | 2: Markedly unsatisfactory | 3: Very unsatisfactory or did not sleep at all |
Well-being during the day | 0: Normal | 1: Slightly decreased | 2: Markedly decreased | 3: Very decreased |
Functioning capacity during the day | 0: Normal | 1: Slightly decreased | 2: Markedly decreased | 3: Very decreased |
Sleepiness during the day | 0: None | 1: Mild | 2: Considerable | 3: Intense |
A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder of an individual's sleep patterns, in some cases affecting physical, mental, social and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for diagnosing sleep disorders.
Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep for as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, irritability, and a depressed mood. It may result in an increased risk of accidents of all kinds as well as problems focusing and learning. Insomnia can be short term, lasting for days or weeks, or long term, lasting more than a month. The concept of the word insomnia has two distinct possibilities: insomnia disorder (ID) or insomnia symptoms, and many abstracts of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews often underreport on which of these two possibilities the word refers to.
Somnolence is a state of strong desire for sleep, or sleeping for unusually long periods. It has distinct meanings and causes. It can refer to the usual state preceding falling asleep, the condition of being in a drowsy state due to circadian rhythm disorders, or a symptom of other health problems. It can be accompanied by lethargy, weakness and lack of mental agility.
Hypersomnia is a neurological disorder of excessive time spent sleeping or excessive sleepiness. It can have many possible causes and can cause distress and problems with functioning. In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), hypersomnolence, of which there are several subtypes, appears under sleep-wake disorders.
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The rebound effect, or rebound phenomenon, is the emergence or re-emergence of symptoms that were either absent or controlled while taking a medication, but appear when that same medication is discontinued, or reduced in dosage. In the case of re-emergence, the severity of the symptoms is often worse than pretreatment levels.
Quazepam, sold under the brand name Doral among others, is a relatively long-acting benzodiazepine derivative drug developed by the Schering Corporation in the 1970s. Quazepam is used for the treatment of insomnia, including sleep induction and sleep maintenance. Quazepam induces impairment of motor function and has relatively selective hypnotic and anticonvulsant properties with considerably less overdose potential than other benzodiazepines. Quazepam is an effective hypnotic which induces and maintains sleep without disruption of the sleep architecture.
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Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was originally developed by Zigmond and Snaith (1983) and is commonly used by doctors to determine the levels of anxiety and depression that a person is experiencing. The HADS is a 14-item scale, with seven items relating to anxiety and seven relating to depression. Zigmond and Snaith created this outcome measure specifically to avoid reliance on aspects of these conditions that are also common somatic symptoms of illness, for example fatigue and insomnia or hypersomnia. This, it was hoped, would create a tool for the detection of anxiety and depression in people with physical health problems.
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The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a multiple-choice self-report inventory that is used as a screening and diagnostic tool for mental health disorders of depression, anxiety, alcohol, eating, and somatoform disorders. It is the self-report version of the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD), a diagnostic tool developed in the mid-1990s by Pfizer Inc. The length of the original assessment limited its feasibility; consequently, a shorter version, consisting of 11 multi-part questions - the Patient Health Questionnaire was developed and validated.
The Somatic Symptom Scale - 8 (SSS-8) is a brief self-report questionnaire used to assess somatic symptom burden. It measures the perceived burden of common somatic symptoms. These symptoms were originally chosen to reflect common symptoms in primary care but they are relevant for a large number of diseases and mental disorders. The SSS-8 is a brief version of the popular Patient Health Questionnaire - 15 (PHQ-15).
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The Child Mania Rating Scales (CMRS) is a 21-item diagnostic screening measure designed to identify symptoms of mania in children and adolescents aged 9–17 using diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV, developed by Pavuluri and colleagues. There is also a 10-item short form. The measure assesses the child's mood and behavior symptoms, asking parents or teachers to rate how often the symptoms have caused a problem for the youth in the past month. Clinical studies have found the CMRS to be reliable and valid when completed by parents in the assessment of children's bipolar symptoms. The CMRS also can differentiate cases of pediatric bipolar disorder from those with ADHD or no disorder, as well as delineating bipolar subtypes. A meta-analysis comparing the different rating scales available found that the CMRS was one of the best performing scales in terms of telling cases with bipolar disorder apart from other clinical diagnoses. The CMRS has also been found to provide a reliable and valid assessment of symptoms longitudinally over the course of treatment. The combination of showing good reliability and validity across multiple samples and clinical settings, along with being free and brief to score, make the CMRS a promising tool, especially since most other checklists available for youths do not assess manic symptoms.
The Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS) is a 20-item self-report instrument that assesses the severity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms along four empirically supported theme-based dimensions: (a) contamination, (b) responsibility for harm and mistakes, (c) incompleteness/symmetry, and (d) unacceptable (taboo) thoughts. The scale was developed in 2010 by a team of experts on OCD led by Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD to improve upon existing OCD measures and advance the assessment and understanding of OCD. The DOCS contains four subscales that have been shown to have good reliability, validity, diagnostic sensitivity, and sensitivity to treatment effects in a variety of settings cross-culturally and in different languages. As such, the DOCS meets the needs of clinicians and researchers who wish to measure current OCD symptoms or assess changes in symptoms over time.
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