Introduction
Sleep disorders are health conditions that cause difficulty in finding or staying asleep for a significant period. In other words, sleep disorders reduce the quality of the person suffering from them (Pagel et al., 2018). Common sleep disorders include insomnia, sleep apnea, and restless legs syndrome. Since sleep disorder is a condition that threatens health safety and attracts more health problems, people suffering from it seek medical help that will induce and sustain sleep. However, drug issuing to patients with sleep disorders may cause addictions and lead to drug abuse.
While some patients may take overdoses, others may keep taking the drugs long after the symptoms stop (Pagel et al., 2018). Another form of abuse is when people make up false symptoms so they can wrongfully receive medication for personal gain (Murdach, 2006). This abuse is called malingering and is also a significant concern to healthcare professionals. However, mental health professionals have the upper hand in receiving more accurate and honest information from patients who abuse these drugs. This paper, therefore, offers an in-depth discussion on sleep disorders, malingering, and the role of mental health professionals in mitigating malingering.
Major Types of Drugs Prescribed for Sleep Disorders
There are major types of drugs usually prescribed for sleep disorders. Scientifically, these drugs mainly work on the central nervous system and some hormones. For example, some of them work by suppressing the parts of the central nervous system responsible for keeping one awake (Pagel et al., 2018). Other drugs increase the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters responsible for positive moods and emotions. This is because sometimes sleep disorders are caused by stress, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.
The effective drugs for sleep disorders include antidepressants, benzodiazepines, doxepin, resolutions, and lemborexants (Pagel et al., 2018). In diving deeper into the details of the drugs, antidepressants work by balancing or increasing chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline in the brain cells (Pagel et al., 2018). These chemicals further cause a person to be in happy, joyous, and satisfactory moods.
Since some sleep disorders are caused by stress and anxiety, antidepressants elevate moods, allowing one to sleep without being worried or uneasy. Benzodiazepines work by triggering sedation effects that cause one to be calm, drowsy, and sleepy (Pagel et al., 2018). The sedation effect happens when the brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is responsible for inhibiting emotions, memory, and reasoning, is activated (Pagel et al., 2018).
Doxepin works by clogging histamine receptors, hence allowing receptors that promote sleep (Pagel et al., 2018). Remolteons help maintain the sleep-wake cycle by activating the melatonin receptor, which causes sleepiness when it is dark (Pagel et al., 2018). Lastly, lemborexants work by depressing the part of the central nervous system called the orexin receptor that signals the brain to be awake, promoting sleep (Pagel et al., 2018). All these drugs can be prescribed for people who have insomnia and other sleep disorders.
Potential for Addiction Associated with These Medicines
However, these sleep disorder drugs can lead to addiction and cause malingering. When it comes to addiction, it is essential to note that some sleep disorder drugs often come with adverse effects that cause addiction (Merckelbach et al., 2019). For instance, benzodiazepines, one of the primary drugs used on insomnia patients, have detrimental effects like physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms. This means that a person taking benzodiazepines is likely to be addicted and may want more than the recommended dosage.
Notably, addicted people consider malingering an easy way to access more drugs than recommended. (Merckelbach et al., 2019). As stated earlier, malingering is when a person exaggerates or lies about sleep disorder symptoms to access the prescription of sleeping medications. Addicted individuals depend on these drugs to feel calm and relaxed. Without these drugs, the addicted person may have withdrawal symptoms like mood swings, blurred vision, restlessness, and stress. Therefore, malingering is the best option for people who are addicted.
Issues Related to Malingering in the Treatment of Sleep Disorders
Malingering poses various and unique challenges in the treatment of sleep disorders. Healthcare professionals face arduous tasks when malingering patients present exaggerated symptoms (Sherrill et al., 2022). This is because healthcare professionals fail to find available medical evidence that supports excessive symptoms reported by the malingering patient. Providers may find it difficult to determine whether a patient is suffering from mental disorders or is a malingering case. Prescribing more sleep disorder drugs to a malingering person will only do more harm than good since the person will continue to abuse drugs.
Therefore, healthcare professionals struggle to discover the actual symptoms of the person so that they may give the proper medication. It is often difficult to determine if a patient is malingering since providers are inclined to show empathy for their patients even if they suspect malingering (Sherrill et al., 2022). This may lead to burnout.
However, mental health researchers have associated malingering with psychological arousal and cognitive processors. This means that malingerers may happen in the context of psychological and mental issues like PTSD (Sherrill et al., 2022). As much as all malingerers are not mentally ill, their false symptoms can be revealed when they consult a mental health professional. Therefore, psychological care providers can significantly contribute to mitigating the potentialities of malingering.
Mental Health Professional’s Role in Mitigating the Potentialities of Malingering
In mitigating the potentialities of malingering, mental health professionals utilize their advantage of compelling patients to feel free and give them more accurate and honest information. As such, they play the role of offering therapy and counseling (Murdach, 2006). Treatment is used to break confidentiality and gather information, while counseling utilizes the information to help the person stop malingering.
A therapist offers behavioral psychotherapy, which clarifies the relationship between the malingerer’s thoughts and actions. In most cases, negative beliefs and psychological traumas often result in unhealthy behaviors. The therapist helps the patient to identify their views and triggers (Merckelbach et al., 2019). For instance, a person who has PTSD may have sleeping disorders due to this condition.
However, discovering that a patient has PTSD will help the mental health professional focus on managing the disease to reduce stress levels. When it comes to counseling, mental health starts by encouraging the malingerer to keep reducing their dosage of sleep-order drugs until their body adapts to not using them (Murdach, 2006). The craving for sleeping pills can also be reduced if the patient is helped to set goals of healthy behaviors and to follow them strictly. Hence, malingering can be identified and mitigated by mental health professionals.
Conclusion
In conclusion, major sleep disorder drugs have an addictive effect, leading to malingering. Identifying malingering can be pretty tricky for healthcare professionals when treating sleeping disorders. However, as discussed, mental health professionals can navigate through and mitigate malingering.
References
Merckelbach, H., Dandachi-FitzGerald, B., van Helvoort, D., Jelicic, M., & Otgaar, H. (2019). When patients overreport symptoms: More than just malingering. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(3), 321-326.
Murdach, A. D. (2006). Social work and malingering. Health and Social Work, 31(2), 155-159.
Pagel, J. F., Pandi-Perumal, S. R., & Monti, J. M. (2018). Treating insomnia with medications. Sleep Science and Practice, 2(1). Web.
Sherrill, A. M., Patton, S. C., Bliwise, D. L., Yasinski, C. W., Maples-Keller, J., Rothbaum, B. O., & Rauch, S. A. (2022). Sleep disorder symptoms and massed delivery of prolonged exposure for posttraumatic stress disorder: Nodding off but not missing out. Psychological trauma: theory, research, practice, and policy, 14(2), 173.
