During deployments, military personnel often work rapidly changing schedules, sleeping for a few hours at a time whenever they can and sometimes being forced to cut sleep short and awaken quickly to respond to an ambush, mortar or rocket attack or other emergency situation. Their erratic sleep patterns usually continue when they return from deployment, leading to insomnia.
Dr. Daniel Taylor, a University of North Texas associate professor of psychology, recently received a $1.16 million grant from U.S. Department of Defense to determine the effectiveness of online and in-person cognitive behavioral therapy to treat active duty military personnel who are experiencing these sleep problems.
The study is being performed in conjunction with the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience, or STRONG STAR. STRONG STAR is a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research consortium that is developing and evaluating the most effective early interventions possible for the detection, prevention and treatment of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder in active-duty military personnel and recently discharged veterans.
Taylor says that insomnia is a strong risk factor for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and suicide. Treatment of insomnia may not only improve sleep in these soldiers, but also improve these other conditions, he says.
Cognitive behavioral therapy of insomnia may be preferred over medication in a military environment since, Taylor says, the potential side effects of medications - grogginess and slowed cognitive processing and reaction time - "can be negative for military personnel, especially when they must react quickly as part of their duties."
By next spring, the researchers will recruit 189 Fort Hood soldiers with chronic insomnia -- defined as sleeping poorly at least three nights a week for a month or longer -- who will be randomly assigned to receive three sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy over six weeks. Half of the military personnel will receive the therapy from clinicians at Fort Hood, while the other half will receive the training via a website.
In a previous study of civilians with insomnia, Taylor and his research team discovered that cognitive behavioral therapy led to significant improvements in sleep efficiency, with the research subjects' use of sleep medication declining from 87.5 percent before therapy to 54 percent afterward, although the subjects weren't required to stop taking their medication.
Taylor says the treatment for military personnel "has the potential to improve psychological and physical health, decrease accidents and improve overall war fighter fitness."
Contact: Nancy Kolsti
UNT News Service
(940) 565-3509
or metro (817) 267-0651
nkolsti@unt.edu