Modafinil (Provigil) for Excessive Sleepiness Associated with Shift-Work Sleep Disorder

Having prescribed Provigil (Modafinil) and having taken it once myself after a 12 hour flight, I'm very impressed: it works extremely well. You stay up. Easily, for many hours, and without the jitters of coffee or caffeine pills. I expect that it's a drug that will be used and abused by college students, medical residents, and business travelers. The following is an abstract from the New England Journal of Medicine. (I was struck most by the significant reduction in accidents or near accidents while commuting home.)

Patients with shift-work sleep disorder chronically have excessive sleepiness during night work and insomnia when attempting to sleep during the day. We evaluated the use of modafinil for treating sleepiness in patients with this disorder.

In a three-month, double-blind trial, we randomly assigned 209 patients with shift-work sleep disorder to receive either 200 mg of modafinil or placebo before the start of each shift. Assessments were performed with the use of the nighttime Multiple Sleep Latency Test, the Clinical Global Impression of Change, the Psychomotor Vigilance Test, diaries of patients, and daytime polysomnography. After randomization, we conducted monthly assessments.

Treatment with modafinil, as compared with placebo, resulted in a modest improvement from baseline in mean (±SEM) nighttime sleep latency (the interval between the time a person attempts to fall asleep and the onset of sleep) (1.7±0.4 vs. 0.3±0.3 minutes, respectively; P=0.002), and more patients had improvement in their clinical symptoms (74 percent vs. 36 percent, respectively; P<0.001). Patients who were receiving modafinil also had a reduction in the frequency and duration of lapses of attention during nighttime testing of their performance on the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (change from baseline, a reduction in lapse frequency of 2.6 vs. an increase of 3.8, respectively; P<0.001), and proportionally fewer patients reported having had accidents or near accidents while commuting home (29 percent vs. 54 percent, respectively; P<0.001). Despite these benefits, patients treated with modafinil continued to have excessive sleepiness and impaired performance at night. Modafinil did not adversely affect daytime sleep as compared with placebo. Headache was the most common adverse event.

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