Insomnia is a risk factor (odds ratio 39,8) as well as symptom of depressive disorder and other psychiatric conditions. Therefore, psychiatrists require appropriate training in diagnosing and treating insomnia. To date, there is no data available in Europe on training in sleep medicine for early career psychiatrists.

To establish how accessible training in insomnia management is to European early career Psychiatrists, and how confident they feel in treating this disorder.

Europe wide survey carried out jointly by the European and World Psychiatric Associations Early Career Psychiatrists Committees. Representatives of Early career Psychiatrists from each participating European country filled in a questionnaire about training in sleep medicine in their country. Early Career Psychiatrists were also invited to fill out a questionnaire at the EPA congress in Nice in 2013.

55 participants from 27 European countries responded. Only 24% had sleep medicine training mandatorily included in their national training curriculum. A majority (60%) felt that the quality of training they did receive was either average or below average. 88% felt either very or fairly confident in treating insomnia. However, when asked to select the correct management options for insomnia from a provided list of 6 options, only 19% and 33% of respondents chose the two correct options.

There is a clear gap between the level of confidence and the clinical judgements being made to treat insomnia among European Early Career Psychiatrists. There is a definite need to improve the availability and structure of insomnia training in Europe.