Almost Half Of Female Veterans Suffer From Insomnia & Are Going Untreated

A new study suggests that there's a psychological condition going undiagnosed in female veterans: insomnia. According to the study, the abstract of which was published in a supplement to the most recent issue of the Journal of Sleep, 47% of female veterans surveyed suffer from insomnia that resulted in functional impairments. Less than 1% of those had been diagnosed with a sleep disorder. The lead author, Kimberly Babson, PhD, of the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, said that this information would be a useful reference for identifying patients at high risk for a sleep disorder. Only the abstract of the study has been published so far, and it does not attempt to determine the causes of this high rate of insomnia. "These results can be used by primary care clinicians to identify women that fit within these subgroups for referral, assessment, and intervention of insomnia symptoms in order to decrease risk for the psychological, physical, and psycho-social consequences associated with insomnia," Babson said, according to ScienceDaily. The effects of chronic insomnia, per the National Institute of Health, include impaired immune system, increased risk of car accidents, and a higher incidence of depression. The more doctors are aware of the risks among female vets, the less this kind of thing can slip under the radar.