ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION A comprehensive history is the cornerstone of the evaluation process in insomnia. This fact deserves special emphasis in the case of insomnia, since less than half of primary care physicians obtain a sleep history despite being confronted with a complaint of insomnia (1). In this chapter, we will assume that an insomnia complaint has already been established; nevertheless, it is noteworthy that only a minority of insomnia complaints are actually captured during patientphysician encounters. Even severe insomnia remains undetected by physicians in 60% of cases (2,3). Therefore, active inquiry about sleep disturbances is especially important since 70% of insomnia sufferers do not raise the problem with their physicians (4).
