Clinical Assessment of Sleep-Wake Complaints

This chapter presents an overview of the elements of the clinical assessment of sleep disorders. As this book contains individual chapters discussing the diagnosis and treatment of many sleep disorders, this chapter discusses methods for assessing a patient with any possible sleep complaint. Suggestions are given for information to be gathered by the patient prior to the intake evaluation. General considerations regarding the structure of the intake evaluation are reviewed. A recommended semi-structured intake evaluation is then discussed, along with how to include a functional analysis of the sleep complaint, leading to a discussion of how to integrate this information into a clinical assessment and a list of rule-out diagnoses. Finally, we review a selection of self-report questionnaires that can provide additional information aiding in the assessment of the sleep patient.