Many physical and mental illnesses can affect peoples' quality of sleep thereby impeding mental and physical recovery. For example, clients who suffer from a mood disorder such has depression, or an anxiety disorder such has PTSD, often report sleep problems. In addition, those with a comorbid physical ailment such has chronic pain (combined medication side effects), or a sleep disorder (ex. sleep apnea or insomnia) are also likely to report decreased sleep quality. A good initial assessment (and during follow ups) can be paramount to treatment outcomes, and necessary for sleep research. For that purpose, the Pittsburgh Sleep Diary (PghSD) was developed by Dr. Monk and is team at the University of Pittsburgh (Monk et. al., 1994) [read abstract]. It has become a gold standard in sleep research.My Sleep Diary (by Veyette Software), a free Android app, provides 13 of the 21 most important questions contained in the PghSD (note that if you need the last 8 missing questions, you can instruct your patient to answer them in the Note section of this app and separate answers with commas). Information can then be saved in a .CSV file (comma separated file) that can be imported into programs such as Excel, SPSS, Statistica. This is a great app that I recommend to any clinical psychologist, medical professionals or sleep researchers.
Jocelyn Morettini
Health Psychologist / Neuropsychologist
View Jocelyn Morettini's [LinkedIn] page
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