Screening for Sleep Problems: An Expert's Guide

Trying to determine the most appropriate approach to a patient with sleep problems can be difficult. Sam A. Kashani, a sleep physician, offers his advice on how best to screen for sleep disorders as a psychiatric clinician. His guide boils down to 1 critical component: collaboration.

As discussed in a previous video, there is a lot of overlap between sleep disorders and psychiatric disorders. It can be difficult for clinicians to parse out what is a psychiatric disorder and what is a purely sleep issue, particularly when insomnia or other sleep issues are so prevalently seen in major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, and more. Collaboration in the treatment team is key, shared Kashani.

"If there is any suspicion clinically that there might be something more than just a psychiatric disorder going on that would explain the person's symptoms and presentation, clinicians should have a very low threshold to collaborate and refer to sleep physicians like myself."

Kashani frequently collaborates with his psychiatric colleagues in order to achieve a multifaceted approach to treating sleep issues, psychiatric issues, and "the whole picture."

Psychiatric and sleep clinicians also have a lot of overlap in terms of prescribing pharmacologic treatments, particularly for insomnia and narcolepsy. "Having collaboration in that regard results in better outcomes and everybody winning."

Dr Kashani is a board-certified sleep medicine physician who practices in Santa Monica, Porter Ranch, and Santa Clarita. He is currently president of the California Sleep Society and is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.