Qualitative Study of Long-Term Sedative-Hypnotic use Patterns

Hypnotics are the most common choice of treatment for insomnia. Clinically, high proportion of hypnotic users is long-term user. However, studies showed disagreements over the effectiveness and safety of long-term use of hypnotics. Adopting the methods of the grounded theory, this research has conducted a series of in-depth interviews in order to understand the psychological experience and to construct a behavioral theory of the long-term hypnotics users. Twenty-two long-term users of hypnotics have been interviewed with well-trained interviewer. This research has found that long-term hypnotic users could be divided into three pattern groups: “transitional modality”, “contradictory control”, and “inertia balance”. It is anticipated that this research will shed lights on the treatment of long-term hypnotics medication for the clinical practitioners and provide a foundation for the future studies on the relationship between the relevant variables of the medication patterns and the prognosis.