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

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Types of <strong>Sleep</strong> <strong>Difficulties</strong> Experienced <strong>in</strong> FMS<br />

Basel<strong>in</strong>e analysis of participants with FMS <strong>in</strong> a cl<strong>in</strong>ical trial of hydrotherapy revealed<br />

that participants (N=50) reported sleep<strong>in</strong>g for a total of five hours per night. This is<br />

comparable to patients with <strong>in</strong>somnia, less than participants with chronic pa<strong>in</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />

significantly worse than the general population as described <strong>in</strong> Chapter Two (Vitor<strong>in</strong>o,<br />

Carvalho, & Prado, 2006).<br />

A key study published dur<strong>in</strong>g the completion of this thesis, explored the nature of<br />

perceived sleep disturbances <strong>in</strong> patients with FMS us<strong>in</strong>g the PSQI. F<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs revealed<br />

that participants with FMS perceived their overall sleep quality to be poor, with over<br />

90% of participants obta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g a PSQI global score >10 (Osorio et al., 2006). As<br />

described <strong>in</strong> Chapter Two, PSQI global scores of >5 are considered to be <strong>in</strong>dicative of<br />

poor sleep quality <strong>in</strong> need of treatment, however for this study the authors set the cut-off<br />

score as 10 for reasons that were unspecified. This change <strong>in</strong> scor<strong>in</strong>g makes<br />

comparisons to other studies about the extent of sleep difficulties based on the PSQI<br />

scores problematic. Despite these limitations, on explor<strong>in</strong>g the components of sleep<br />

quality with<strong>in</strong> this sample, it was revealed that people with FMS reported significantly<br />

more night-time awaken<strong>in</strong>gs, difficulties fall<strong>in</strong>g asleep <strong>and</strong> reduced daytime<br />

dysfunction, <strong>in</strong> comparison to matched healthy controls. This suggests that the reduction<br />

<strong>in</strong> total sleep time observed by Vitor<strong>in</strong>o et al (2006) may be caused by difficulties both<br />

with sleep onset <strong>and</strong> sleep ma<strong>in</strong>tenance.<br />

The f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs of the study by Vitor<strong>in</strong>o et al (2006) were also limited by its ability to<br />

generalize to the FMS population due to its small sample size (N=30) <strong>and</strong> because of<br />

sampl<strong>in</strong>g participants solely from a rheumatology cl<strong>in</strong>ic (which may not be<br />

representative of the whole FMS population). The study did not explore the <strong>in</strong>fluence of<br />

sleep quality on illness outcome. Consequently further research is needed to explore<br />

people‟s perceptions of sleep quality <strong>in</strong> FMS <strong>and</strong> how poor sleep may impact on their<br />

illness experience <strong>and</strong> daily liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> people with FMS.<br />

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