Qualitative Investigation of Primary Care Provider Perspectives on the Assessment and Treatment of Insomnia.
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2025-08
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Although common, insomnia is often undertreated and underrecognized in primary care settings. Few studies have examined primary care provider (PCP) perspectives to better understand the context of insomnia assessment and treatment. The purpose of the current study was to examine Veterans Affairs (VA) provider knowledge and practice regarding the assessment and treatment of insomnia by utilizing qualitative inquiry. We recruited PCPs at a VA healthcare facility located in the southeastern United States to engage in a qualitative descriptive study of their perspectives on the management of insomnia in the primary care setting. Participants completed a demographic form and semi-structured interviews. Interview data were analyzed using a rapid qualitative analysis approach. 12 PCPs participated in semi-structured interviews. Themes were knowledge gaps in appropriate assessment, treatment, and documentation practices. Providers tended to focus on the event that precipitated insomnia rather than factors that perpetuate it and relied heavily on sleep hygiene recommendations. Systemic barriers, such as time constraints, also impeded the highest quality of care. PCPs may benefit from additional training on factors that maintain insomnia and on evidence-based treatments for insomnia. There may also be an opportunity to develop tools such as shared decision-making aids to increase referrals to evidence-based treatments. Development of strategies to facilitate assessment and treatment of insomnia disorder in the context of busy, fast-paced primary care settings may be beneficial to veterans and civilians with sleep disorders.
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Ford, Jessica, Colleen Blue, Corrine I Voils, Sara M Andrews, Stephanie Ferguson, Hayden Bosworth, Nina Sperber, Christi S Ulmer, et al. (2025). Qualitative Investigation of Primary Care Provider Perspectives on the Assessment and Treatment of Insomnia. Journal of clinical psychology in medical settings. 10.1007/s10880-025-10088-y Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/34210.
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Scholars@Duke
Hayden Barry Bosworth
Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT) at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities.
Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.
Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy
Nina Sperber
My research career has centered on understanding how to improve delivery of new evidence-based practices in health care systems. I create study designs that integrate qualitative and quantitative methods (mixed-methods) and apply Implementation Science and System Science approaches. I currently have a developing body of academic work that uses participatory system dynamics modeling as a strategy to identify system level factors that affect development and implementation of equitable AI tools. For the VA health care system, I direct a cross-functional team that conducts rapid turnaround projects for high priority needs by VHA national, regional, and facility leaders.
Christi S Ulmer
I am an Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine and clinical research psychologist at the Durham VA Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT). My research is focused on increasing our understanding of the health correlates of sleep disorders, increasing patient access to behavioral sleep medicine, and developing and disseminating behaviorally-based treatments for sleep disorders. I am a Behavioral Sleep Medicine Diplomate who has been treating patients with sleep disturbances for the past 17 years. I serve as faculty on the Durham VA Health Psychology fellowship training program; the first accredited BSM training program in the VA healthcare system. I served as a VA Co-Chair for the development of VA/DOD Clinical Practice Guidelines for insomnia and sleep apnea, and served as a consultant on the VA Dissemination of training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia for more than 8 years. I am committed to expanding patient access to and provider knowledge of effective behavioral sleep medicine interventions, and increasing the recognition of sleep’s role in patient health.
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