Cargando…

Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia

In this paper we examine the medical management of sleeplessness as ‘insomnia’, through the eyes of general practitioners (GPs) and sleep experts in Britain. Three key themes were evident in the data. These related to (i) institutional issues around advocacy and training in sleep medicine (ii) conce...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Coveney, Catherine, Williams, Simon J., Gabe, Jonathan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6849542/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30240017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12820
_version_ 1783469227459477504
author Coveney, Catherine
Williams, Simon J.
Gabe, Jonathan
author_facet Coveney, Catherine
Williams, Simon J.
Gabe, Jonathan
author_sort Coveney, Catherine
collection PubMed
description In this paper we examine the medical management of sleeplessness as ‘insomnia’, through the eyes of general practitioners (GPs) and sleep experts in Britain. Three key themes were evident in the data. These related to (i) institutional issues around advocacy and training in sleep medicine (ii) conceptual issues in the diagnosis of insomnia (iii) and how these played out in terms of treatment issues. As a result, the bulk of medical management occurred at the primary rather than secondary care level. These issues are then reflected on in terms of the light they shed on relations between the medicalisation and the pharmaceuticalisation of sleeplessness as insomnia. Sleeplessness, we suggest, is only partially and problematically medicalised as insomnia to date at the conceptual, institutional and interactional levels owing to the foregoing factors. Much of this moreover, on closer inspection, is arguably better captured through recourse to pharmaceuticalisation, including countervailing moves and downward regulatory pressures which suggest a possible degree of depharmaceuticalisation in future, at least as far prescription hypnotics are concerned. Pharmaceuticalisation therefore, we conclude, has distinct analytical value in directing our attention, in this particular case, to important dynamics occurring within if not beyond the medicalisation of sleeplessness as insomnia.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6849542
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher John Wiley and Sons Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-68495422019-11-15 Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia Coveney, Catherine Williams, Simon J. Gabe, Jonathan Sociol Health Illn Original Articles In this paper we examine the medical management of sleeplessness as ‘insomnia’, through the eyes of general practitioners (GPs) and sleep experts in Britain. Three key themes were evident in the data. These related to (i) institutional issues around advocacy and training in sleep medicine (ii) conceptual issues in the diagnosis of insomnia (iii) and how these played out in terms of treatment issues. As a result, the bulk of medical management occurred at the primary rather than secondary care level. These issues are then reflected on in terms of the light they shed on relations between the medicalisation and the pharmaceuticalisation of sleeplessness as insomnia. Sleeplessness, we suggest, is only partially and problematically medicalised as insomnia to date at the conceptual, institutional and interactional levels owing to the foregoing factors. Much of this moreover, on closer inspection, is arguably better captured through recourse to pharmaceuticalisation, including countervailing moves and downward regulatory pressures which suggest a possible degree of depharmaceuticalisation in future, at least as far prescription hypnotics are concerned. Pharmaceuticalisation therefore, we conclude, has distinct analytical value in directing our attention, in this particular case, to important dynamics occurring within if not beyond the medicalisation of sleeplessness as insomnia. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-09-21 2019-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6849542/ /pubmed/30240017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12820 Text en © 2018 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for SHIL. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Coveney, Catherine
Williams, Simon J.
Gabe, Jonathan
Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
title Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
title_full Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
title_fullStr Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
title_full_unstemmed Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
title_short Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
title_sort medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6849542/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30240017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12820
work_keys_str_mv AT coveneycatherine medicalisationpharmaceuticalisationorbothexploringthemedicalmanagementofsleeplessnessasinsomnia
AT williamssimonj medicalisationpharmaceuticalisationorbothexploringthemedicalmanagementofsleeplessnessasinsomnia
AT gabejonathan medicalisationpharmaceuticalisationorbothexploringthemedicalmanagementofsleeplessnessasinsomnia