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Sick and Tired: Understanding and Managing Sleep Difficulties in ...

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Chapter Eight. Integrated Discussion<br />

The overarch<strong>in</strong>g aim of this thesis was to extend the current knowledge of the nature<br />

of sleep disturbance <strong>in</strong> people with FMS. The first three chapters reviewed the<br />

available literature on sleep <strong>and</strong> FMS, <strong>and</strong> the f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs were used to <strong>in</strong>form the design<br />

of four <strong>in</strong>ter-l<strong>in</strong>ked studies which aimed to address the gaps <strong>in</strong> the literature. A mixed<br />

methods (quantitative <strong>and</strong> qualitative) approach was used to explore the sleep<br />

experience <strong>in</strong> order to elicit a more comprehensive underst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g of the role of sleep<br />

<strong>in</strong> FMS.<br />

Overall this thesis highlighted that disturbed sleep is one of the most disabl<strong>in</strong>g<br />

difficulties for people with FMS, that psychological factors have an <strong>in</strong>tegral role <strong>in</strong><br />

people‟s perceived sleep experience <strong>and</strong> that <strong>in</strong>terventions to improve sleep quality<br />

need to be tailored to the needs of the population, <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>clude a component address<strong>in</strong>g<br />

the psychological factors. The four objectives of this thesis were addressed by several<br />

of the embedded studies, highlight<strong>in</strong>g the cohesiveness of the thesis as a comb<strong>in</strong>ed<br />

whole.<br />

Objective One. The Nature <strong>and</strong> Extent of <strong>Sleep</strong> <strong>Difficulties</strong> <strong>in</strong> FMS<br />

The first objective of this thesis was to describe the nature <strong>and</strong> extent of self-reported<br />

sleep difficulties <strong>in</strong> FMS. The first study (Chapter Four) highlighted that participants<br />

reported a short sleep duration total sleep (mean of six hours) <strong>and</strong> poor sleep<br />

efficiency. It was also revealed that a high percentage (97%) of participants<br />

experienced significant sleep difficulties <strong>in</strong> need of further <strong>in</strong>tervention <strong>in</strong> support of<br />

previous f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>in</strong> FMS (Osorio et al., 2006). The high frequency of sleep<br />

disturbances <strong>in</strong> this population was further supported <strong>in</strong> the follow<strong>in</strong>g case-control<br />

study (Chapter Five) which revealed that people with FMS were (32 times) more<br />

likely to have severe sleep difficulties than healthy controls.<br />

Participants also reported that the most common sleep difficulty was wak<strong>in</strong>g up<br />

several times throughout the course of the night, a f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g that was supported <strong>in</strong> the<br />

study described <strong>in</strong> Chapter Seven, <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> a previous study conducted by Korszun et al<br />

(2002) us<strong>in</strong>g sleep actigraphy. The experience of night-time awaken<strong>in</strong>gs was<br />

151

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