Background: Group cognitive–behavioral therapy (GCBT) might meet the considerable treatment demand of insomnia, but its effectiveness needs to be addressed.
Participants: This study recruited 27 insomnia patients treated with 16-weeks of zolpidem (zolpidem group), 26 patients treated with 4-weeks of zolpidem and also treated with 12-weeks of GCBT (GCBT group), and 31 healthy control volunteers.
Methods: Before treatment and 16 weeks after intervention, participants were evaluated using the Patient Health Questionnaires (Patient Health Questionnaire-9 [PHQ-9] and Patient Health Questionnaire-15 [PHQ-15]), the Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep-16 (DBAS-16), and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).
Results: Compared to the zolpidem and healthy control groups, the scale scores of PHQ-9, PHQ-15, DBAS-16 and PSQI were significantly reduced after intervention in the GCBT group. Regarding the score changes, there were correlations between PSQI, DBAS-16, PHQ-9, and PHQ-15 scales in the zolpidem group, but there were limited correlations between PSQI and some DBAS-16 scales in the GCBT group.
Conclusion: Our results indicate that GCBT is effective to treat insomnia by improving sleep quality and reducing emotional and somatic disturbances; thus, the study supports the advocacy of applying group psychotherapy to the disorder.
Keywords: cognitive–behavioral therapy, group psychotherapy, insomnia