Post traumatic stress symptom variation associated with sleep characteristics.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
• Sleep Medicine
• Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders

Background:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is strongly linked to sleep disturbances.
• The specific impact of nighttime sleep characteristics on daily post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between specific nighttime sleep parameters and subsequent daily PTSS.
• To examine the predictive power of sleep duration, awakenings, quality, and sleep-onset/maintenance difficulties on next-day PTSS.

Main Methods:

• Employed an ecological momentary assessment methodology over 15 days.
• Sixty-one individuals with probable PTSD reported sleep characteristics and PTSS multiple times daily.
• Utilized univariate and multivariate linear mixed models to analyze within-subject and between-subject associations.

Main Results:

• Nightly sleep duration, sleep quality, trouble falling asleep, and difficulty staying asleep all predicted next-day PTSS.
• In multivariate analyses, sleep duration, trouble falling asleep, and difficulty staying asleep remained significant predictors.
• Sleep quality did not predict PTSS in the multivariate model; however, difficulty staying asleep was a consistent predictor across analyses.

Conclusions:

• For individuals with PTSD, prior night sleep duration, trouble falling asleep, and difficulty staying asleep predict subsequent PTSS.
• Interventions aimed at improving sleep onset, sleep maintenance, and increasing sleep duration may be beneficial for PTSD treatment.