Journal of Sleep Disorders & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

A Study of Insomnia among Psychiatric Out-Patients in Lagos Nigeria

Raphael E Ogbolu, Olatunji F Aina, Oluwole O Famuyiwa and Adebayo R Erinfolami

Insomnia is closely related to psychiatric disorders, occurring as an accompanying symptom or as an aetiological factor. It is also a common side-effect of some of the drugs used in treating psychiatric disorders. Several studies have been carried out in different populations however there is the need for more studies aimed at taking a closer look at this relationship in the Nigerian population. The objective of this work is to study the relationship between insomnia and patient characteristics such as sleeping conditions and psychiatric diagnoses. The study was carried out at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. The methodology involved administering a socio-demographic questionnaire and the Sleep-50 questionnaire to consenting subjects whose psychiatric diagnoses were ascertained using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. An analysis of the one hundred and eighty four subjects studied showed that schizophrenia was the commonest psychiatric diagnosis (35.9%). The prevalence of insomnia in this population was found to be 20.1% and it was significantly most prevalent among those with major depression. The noise experienced at night, the subject’s subjective estimation of hours asleep, being elderly and being unemployed were significantly related to the presence of insomnia. In conclusion the study supports the importance of enquiring about insomnia among psychiatric out-patients and highlights the usefulness of sleep questionnaires in obtaining information in sleep disorder research.