The AWAKEN Survey: Knowledge of Narcolepsy Among Physicians and the General Population (Full Text!!)
There was low awareness that narcolepsy is associated with children and young adults in all populations and awareness was lowest among PCPs. An association of narcolepsy with children (aged 5–12 years) and adolescents (aged 13–17 years) was recognized by 14% and 4% of PCPs, respectively. Similarly, low proportions of sleep specialists (12%) and the general population (12%) associated narcolepsy with children, and somewhat higher proportions of sleep specialists (24%) and the general population (20%) acknowledged that narcolepsy can be present in teenagers.It's not your imagination- Narcoleptics do know more about narcolepsy than their doctors.
Recognition of individual narcolepsy symptoms was consistently low in the general population and most of the symptoms were not identified by PCPs; however, sleep specialists had a higher rate of symptom recognition (Figure 3). In particular, there was substantially lower awareness of the nocturnal symptoms associated with narcolepsy relative to other symptoms. Of the 5 key symptoms, EDS was most recognized by PCPs (64%) and the general population (46%); sleep specialists had higher recognition of cataplexy (82%), followed by EDS (70%). Less than half of sleep specialists (41%) identified disruptive nocturnal sleep as a narcolepsy symptom. Sixty-three percent of sleep specialists and 39% of PCPs identified both EDS and cataplexy, the two symptoms most commonly associated with narcolepsy, and recognition of both of these symptoms was higher among the non–board-certified sleep specialists (71% vs 49%). More board-certified than non–board-certified sleep specialists recognized all 5 key symptoms of narcolepsy (30% vs 18%, respectively), but the identification of individual symptoms varied for both groups of sleep specialists (Table 2). Identification of the 2 key symptoms was 69% among psychiatrists, compared with 57% of non-psychiatrists, but recognition of all 5 symptoms was low among psychiatrists (17%) and non-psychiatrists (28%).
