Evaluation
“All the information contained in this section is for guidance only. Psious environments are therapy supporting tools that must be used by the healthcare professional within an evaluation and intervention process designed according to the characteristics and needs of the user.
Also remember that you have the General Clinical Guide in which you have more information on how to adapt psychological intervention techniques (exposure, systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, chip economy…) to Psious environments.”
Insomnia Evaluation
In this section we propose different strategies and tools on how to evaluate Insomnia, as a previous step to using Psious’ VR tools.
OBJECTIVES
- Sleep Assessment
- Is this insomnia or something else (e.g., insufficient sleep syndrome)?
- Even if comorbid conditions present (e.g., depression, pain), CBT-I can be beneficial.
- Even if the patient is on sleep aids or wants to start taking sleep aids, this can be done in combination with CBT-I.
- Patient Characteristics
- Is the patient motivated to try CBT-I? Do they just want a pill?
- Does the patient have sufficient intellect to benefit from CBT-I?
- CBT-I is intended for adult patients
- A major component of CBT-I (sleep restriction) is contraindicated for those with psychosis, bipolar disorder, untreated sleep apnea, parasomnias, and seizure disorder so CBT-I should be modified in these cases
- A sleep study should be conducted in cases of suspected sleep apnea before sleep restriction started.
Useful tools for the Insomnia evaluation
Considering the evaluation objectives, we will enumerate some of the tools that can be useful to obtain relevant information about the characteristics of your user. Remember that good objectives definitions, patient characterization and planification of the intervention are important for therapeutic efficiency and effectiveness just like the user satisfaction. In the bibliography you will find articles where you can revise the characteristics of the proposed tools.
OPEN OR SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW
- Structured interview ADIS-IV
- Sleep self-record/ Sleep logs
SELF-REPORTS
- Insomnia Severity Index (ISI)
- Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS)
- The Bergen insomnia scale (BIS)
- Dysfunctional Attitudes and Beliefs about Sleep (DBAS-16)
- Functional outcomes of sleep questionnaire (FOSQ)