The current study was conducted in order to investigate whether several different methods of characterizing sleep and insomnia symptoms produce different diagnoses.
To this aim, we performed a retrospective study in order to compare the outcome of the assessment obtained using actigraphy with that obtained using polysomnography (PSG) in 27 outpatients complaining of chronic insomnia. Subjects were recruited from a database consisting of patients referred to the sleep centre of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital (Paris) complaining of chronic insomnia. Patients were divided into different groups with regard to type of insomnia.
As far as type of insomnia was concerned, the comparison between actigraphy and PSG showed quite a good contingency coefficient value (C=0.64).
Although this was a preliminary and retrospective study, our results seemed to indicate that actigraphy and PSG were able to lead to a similar output particularly with regard to type of insomnia. Beyond PSG, actigraphy might have a clinical utility in assessing sleep disorders in adults complaining of chronic insomnia.