Natural treatments for sleep disorders- a providers prespective

Abstract

Sleep disorders are highly prevalent globally in modern-day societies. In Australia, 33-45% of adult Australians are estimated to be living with sleep disorders. One of the most common disorders is insomnia which presents with difficulties initiating sleep, maintaining sleep, or experiencing non-restorative sleep. Despite the availability of evidence-based conventional therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and several pharmacological drugs, most patients with insomnia do not adhere to the prescribed therapy and seek relief from complementary medicines and practices However, little is known about how prevalent the use of complementary and alternative medicines/practices in Australians with sleep disorders is. Hence, it is important to map what people with sleep disorders use to manage their sleep health or supplement conventional treatment.

One of the most accepted forms of complementary and alternative medicine forms in Australia includes Naturopathy. However, given the unregulated nature of this profession, there is scant to no information available on whether naturopaths frequently handle sleep disorders, what treatments are provided and how patients’ conventional medicine health care providers are looped into what ‘other’ treatments their patient is using.

It might be an expectation from both types of health professionals (conventional medicine practitioners and complementary and alternative medicine practitioners) that patients with sleep disorders would disclose to them if they were also using a different mode of treatment to avoid potential drug-herb interactions. However, based on the literature generally – this is not always the case and hence the if and why patients disclose or do not disclose different forms of medicines/treatments being used to varied health professionals they consult with. The vision for this project was, therefore, to explore both patient and provider aspects of sleep health treatment use.