Zopiclone, health-related quality of life, and daytime well-being

The concept of health-related quality of life is increasingly being applied to therapeutic agents, and could now be regarded as the third element of effectiveness, together with efficacy against the symptoms and signs of illness, and the absence or low incidence of adverse effects. Despite unresolved conceptual issues surrounding the definitions of both quality of life and insomnia, and methodological problems associated with demonstrating the relationship between the two, there is evidence that the effective alleviation of insomnia in sleep disturbed patients leads to a significant enhancement of the patients' quality of life. It has been shown that zopiclone is significantly more effective than placebo in enhancing those aspects of health-related quality of life associated with satisfactory sleep, activity, social life and professional activities, and also that it restores the quality of life of insomniac patients to the level of that of healthy good-sleepers. Zopiclone treatment does not have any marked residual effects upon daytime psychomotor functioning or information processing, and in this respect should not have negative consequences for quality of life.