A within-subject analysis of stimulus control therapy with severe sleep-onset insomnia.

Stimulus control. a behavioral technique designed to reduce sleep difficulties. has been demonstrated to be effective when compared with control procedures. These comparisons. mainly involving between-subjects analyses. have neglected the contribution of the stimulus control procedure to the production of clinically significant amelioration of sleep dysfunction. In contrast. the present within-subjects experiment was conducted to assess the capability of stimulus control to produce clinically relevant reductions in multiple measures of sleep disturbance. A comparison with the credible placebo procedure indicated that the stimulus control techniques reduced SubJects’ sleep onset latency to a mean latency below 30min per week. Additionally. sedative-hypnotic usage was greatly reduced.