The Potential of Digital Therapeutics and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia: Yuri Maricich, MD, MBA

WATCH TIME: 4 minutes

“There’s been a lot of work looking at the importance of—and what is addressed in the clinical guidelines—cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, but unfortunately, the vast majority of patients can’t get access [to it] because there are only 600 clinicians who are trained, and less than 400 who are even certified.”

The use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat insomnia has become a guideline-recommended approach to treating the sleep disorder in recent years. Although, despite success in randomized controlled trials, few studies have been conducted in real-world practice, in part because of slower uptake in the use of this approach in day-to-day care.

Recently, a group of investigators including Yuri Maricich, MD, MBA, internal medicine physician, and chief medical officer and head of development, Pear Therapeutics, published data from a real-world cohort of individuals who utilized the digital therapeutic Somryst (previously known as SHUTi) evaluating healthcare resource utilization, associated costs, and insomnia severity effects of the therapy.^1,2

Ultimately, the 24-month assessment revealed reductions in health-related services including emergency department visits (53%), hospitalizations (21%), and hospital outpatient visits (13%), as well as an estimated reduction in per-patient costs eclipsing $2000. Additionally, clinical assessments at 9 weeks compared with baseline showed reductions in mean insomnia severity index (ISI) scores (37.2%), ISI responder status percentages (9%), and rates of insomnia remission (6%).

In a conversation with NeurologyLive^®, Maricich shared his perspectives on the motivations for this assessment and the real-world use of these CBT interventions, as well as the importance of the findings.

REFERENCES
1. Forma F, Knight TG, Thorndike FP, et al. Real-World Evaluation of Clinical Response and Long-Term Healthcare Resource Utilization Patterns Following Treatment with a Digital Therapeutic for Chronic Insomnia. Clinicoecon Outcomes Res. 2022;14:537-546. doi:10.2147/CEOR.S368780
2. Pear Therapeutics Announces Publication of New Analysis of Real-World Data Showing Reduction in Insomnia Severity, Healthcare Resource Utilization and Associated Costs in Adults Using Somryst®. News release. Pear Therapeutics. August 10, 2022. Accessed August 25, 2022. https://peartherapeutics.com/pear-therapeutics-announces-publication-of-new-analysis-of-real-world-data-showing-reduction-in-insomnia-severity-healthcare-resource-utilization-and-associated-costs-in-adults-using-somryst/