The Utility of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Sleep Disturbance Item as a Screener for Insomnia in Individuals With Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.

Objective: To examine the utility of the sleep disturbance item of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) as a screening tool for insomnia among individuals with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Setting: Telephone interview.
Participants: A sample of 248 individuals with a history of moderate to severe TBI participated in an interview within 2 years of their injury.
Design: Observational, cross-sectional analysis.
Main Measures: The PHQ-9 was administered along with the Insomnia Severity Index, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Sleep Hygiene Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and the Insomnia Interview Schedule.
Results: Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was conducted for the PHQ-9 sleep item rating against a set of insomnia criteria to determine an optimal cutoff score. A cutoff of 2 on the PHQ-9 sleep item maximized sensitivity (76%) and specificity (79%), with an area under the curve of 0.79 (95% CI, 0.70-0.88). The 2 groups formed using this cutoff differed significantly on all sleep measures except the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.
Conclusions: The PHQ-9 sleep item may serve as a useful screener to allow for detection of potential sleep disturbance among individuals with moderate to severe TBI. Those who screen positive using this item included in a commonly used measure of depression can be prioritized for further and more comprehensive assessment of sleep disorders.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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