Feasibility and preliminary real-world promise of a manualized group-based cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia protocol for veterans.

Insomnia is increasingly common among the general population, even more so among veterans. Given the adverse impact of insomnia on both mental and physical health of veterans, it is important to provide effective treatments within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system. Group-based cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) provides a viable option for treatment. This study reports the feasibility, acceptability, initial effectiveness, and durability of group-based CBT-I in a clinical sample of veterans with comorbid medical and mental health diagnoses; the treatment was provided in a real-world VHA hospital setting using a manualized protocol that was explicitly adapted from the existing 1:1 CBT-I VHA protocol. Overall, we found the treatment to be feasible and acceptable to veterans, as well as effective. We found medium to large effect sizes for both questionnaire and sleep diary measures, including sleep onset latency, awakenings during the night, sleep efficiency, insomnia scores, and dysfunctional beliefs about sleep. Improvements in insomnia symptoms were maintained over 1 month.