Sleep complaints are common in the general population.1 A growing body of evidence indicates that inadequate sleep results in cognitive impairment.2 Automobile accidents have been shown to be one of the most ominous consequences of insomnia.3 A systematic review found that as many as 20% of traffic accidents were associated with sleep deprivation.4 Some prior studies, however, have relied on self-reported information or had small cohorts or lacked a control group. We conducted a longitudinal nationwide population-based study by analyzing the claim data of Taiwan NHI (National Health Insurance)5 to investigate whether primary insomnia contributes to the incidence and severity of traffic accidents. The study group was selected from people 20 years of age and older, with at least 1 inpatient or 3 outpatient claims for primary insomnia (ICD-9-CM 780.5) during 2002–2006. We excluded those with nonprimary sleep disorders (ICD-9-CM 327) and sleep symptoms related with mental disorders (ICD-9-CM 307.4), as well as those with sleep disorders or traffic accidents between 1996 and 2001. The study group was 1:2 matched, according to sex and age, with a randomly selected control group among those without a sleep disorder. To determine the impact of sleep disorders on the incidence of admission due to traffic accidents, we followed all persons for 2 years or until hospital admission due to traffic accident. To estimate the severity of traffic accidents, we assessed length of admission, incidence of intensive care unit (ICU) admission, length of ICU stay, and inhospital mortality...
Language: en
", language="en", issn="1044-3983", doi="10.1097/EDE.0b013e318258cf9a", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0b013e318258cf9a" }