Trazodone for Sleep Disturbance After Alcohol Detoxification: A Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Trial

Abstract

BACKGROUND-Trazodone is commonly prescribed off-label for sleep disturbance in alcohol dependent patients, but its safety and efficacy for this indication is unknown.

A Longitudinal Study of Drinking and Depression as Predictors of Insomnia in Alcohol-Dependent Individuals

“…This decline was statistically significant as indicated by the effect of time in Table 2. To what extent this improvement might have reflected treatment for insomnia is unknown because the study did not collect information about treatment received, although such treatments are effective in AD patients (Arnedt, Conroy, Armitage, & Brower, 2011;Currie, Clark, Hodgins, & El Guebaly, 2004;Friedmann et al, 2008). Previous studies of AD patients without insomnia-specific treatment have shown nonsignificant declines in insomnia severity over periods of 4-12 weeks (Cohn et al, 2003;Foster, Marshall, & Peters, 2000;Foster & Peters, 1999;Steinig, Foraita, Happe, & Heinze, 2011).…”

The association between sleep disturbances and alcohol relapse: A 12-month observational cohort study

“…Also, few studies accounted for the use of hypnotic medications, use of alcohol to fall asleep, and the intensity of craving, all of which could influence relapse risk. 7,8 Thus, the relationship between subjective sleep disturbances, which are common following alcohol treatment, and relapse is unclear, with studies reporting divergent findings. While the earlier two studies explicitly examining the relationship between subjective sleep disturbances and relapse reported an association, other more recent studies did not find such an association.…”

Measuring Sleep Disturbances in Patients With Alcohol Use Disorders

“…The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) represents another tool to measure sleep disturbance (Buysse et al, 1989). This self-report measure has been widely used in previous studies of alcohol-dependent subjects with sleep disturbance (Foster and Peters, 1999;Cohn et al, 2003;Friedmann et al, 2008;Mason et al, 2014). Other screening tools have been reported, such as the Sleep Problems Questionnaire (Brower et al, 2011), which consists of 4 items and represents a shorter alternative to the PSQI, and the Insomnia Severity Index, which is a 7-item self-report questionnaire to detect cases of insomnia in the population and is sensitive to treatment response (Morin et al, 2011).…”