Economic Burden and Quality of Life in Insomnia Treatment

Insomnia imposes a substantial economic burden through direct healthcare costs, such as consultations, investigations and pharmacological therapies, and indirect costs from lost work productivity and accident risk. Individuals with chronic sleep disturbances frequently experience impairments in daytime functioning, comorbid conditions and reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Treatment pathways range from cognitive-behavioural programmes to hypnotic and off-label medications, each with distinct cost profiles and side-effect burdens. Economic evaluations increasingly use real-world data and health state utility measures to capture both financial impact and patient-centred outcomes, including quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). A growing global evidence base highlights regional variations in resource utilisation and underscores the need for interventions that balance efficacy, safety and affordability while preserving or enhancing overall quality of life.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have employed machine-learning algorithms to predict acute care utilisation among patients with insomnia, analysing socio-demographic, diagnostic and medication data. Models trained on both insomnia and non-insomnia cohorts showed that a general predictive model suffices for forecasting emergency department visits, whereas disease-specific models offer added value in anticipating inpatient admissions among those with diagnosed insomnia. Importantly, combining diagnostic and medication inputs did not consistently enhance predictive accuracy and increased computational overhead. These findings offer practical guidance for allocating healthcare resources and for the development of decision-support tools that inform both clinical management and cost-containment strategies.

Economic Burden and Quality of Life in Insomnia Treatment publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in economic burden and quality of life in insomnia treatment across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Economic burden: Aggregate of direct and indirect costs attributable to a health condition.

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL): Impact of health status on physical, mental and social well-being.

Healthcare resource utilisation (HCRU): Use of medical services including hospital admissions, outpatient visits and emergency care.

Quality-adjusted life year (QALY): Metric that combines quantity and quality of life into a single value.

Work productivity impairment: Reduction in work performance or attendance attributable to health problems.

References

1. Insomnia - treatment pathways, costs and quality of life. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation (2011).
2. Mapping of the Insomnia Severity Index and other sleep measures to EuroQol EQ-5D health state utilities. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes (2011).
3. Modeling acute care utilization: practical implications for insomnia patients. Scientific Reports (2023).
4. The burden of untreated insomnia disorder in a sample of 1 million adults: a cohort study. BMC Public Health (2023).
5. Falls, healthcare resources and costs in older adults with insomnia treated with zolpidem, trazodone, or benzodiazepines. BMC Geriatrics (2022).
6. The Associations between Insomnia Severity and Health Outcomes in the United States. Journal of Clinical Medicine (2023).