McEnany Cites Connection Between Sleep Disorders and Diseases

Prof. Geoffry Phillips McEnany

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Nursing Prof. Geoff Phillips McEnany thinks sleep is pretty important. And he isn’t thinking about the kind of sleep that “knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.”

His concern is with the hidden and baleful effects of sleep disorders and dysregulation on major disease states such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and cancer.  Recent research, he says, points to a strong connection between disturbed sleep and the onset of many medical conditions such as these.

“Though the science of somnology has burgeoned in the past 15 years, the education of health providers about the co-morbidities associated with dysfunctional sleep is inadequate,” says McEnany, who conducts research and maintains a clinical practice with psychiatric patients.

“Sleep is easily overlooked as a contributing factor to disease because patients are rarely conscious of their own sleep disturbances,” he says. “Eventually, they complain of daytime sleepiness which predisposes them to a number of safety concerns, including falling asleep while driving. Sleep disturbance is also related to the onset of psychiatric illness. Other conditions, such as untreated sleep apnea, may present as depression but, in fact, may be related to the formal sleep disorder. In the latter circumstance, antidepressant medications don’t help.”

Also, he says, doctors and nurses don’t routinely inquire about sleep as part of a basic assessment and diagnosis. Given the association of disturbed sleep and medical/psychiatric conditions, the absence of a sleep assessment has serious implications for public health.

McEnany says he intends to begin the process of change with an educational program for nurses, funded initially by a $135,000 grant from Sepracor. Working with UML’s Continuing Studies and Corporate Education (CSCE) program, he has developed a 12-module online course for nurses about sleep and chronobiology. CSCE, he says, worked closely with him over several months to launch this initiative, which represents a new direction in CSCE’s work.

The modules cover a full range of sleep issues: the science of sleep, sleep in women or children, sleep and medical disorders, formal sleep disorders (such as sleep apnea), and behavioral assessment and intervention. The course, which provides 36 accredited contact hours toward a certificate, is offered at no cost to the members of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) and the International Nursing Honor Society, Sigma Theta Tau.

Continuing education contact hours are provided through APNA. By the end of the year, it is anticipated that 14,000 nurses will have taken the course.

“The course will open eyes to basic sleep assessment and co-morbidity,” says McEnany. “Nurses often are very involved in the behavioral and drug treatment of patients and this will increase their effectiveness.

“Nursing education is the key.”