Sleep quality among women with head injuries due to intimate partner violence

This study examined the relationship between head injuries due to intimate partner violence (IPV) and sleep quality among women survivors of IPV.

Women were recruited from Kentucky courts after receiving protective orders against intimate partners, including women survivors of IPV with no head injury (n = 260; M = 31.8 years-old, SD = 9.7; 77.3% White) and women survivors with IPV-related head injuries (n = 244; M = 33.7 years-old, SD = 8.9; 88.1% White). Women completed in-person interviews, querying IPV severity, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pain severity, and sleep quality.

Women with IPV-related head injuries reported significantly worse sleep quality (p < .001, d = .63) than women survivors without head injuries. Analyses of components of sleep quality indicated that women with IPV-related head injuries had worse subjective sleep quality, longer sleep latency, shorter sleep duration, more sleep disturbances, greater sleep medication use, and more daytime dysfunction (all p-values<.001). The relationship between IPV-related head injury and sleep remained significant (p = .017, ${\eta }_p^2$=.01) after controlling for sociodemographics, IPV severity, PTSD, and pain.

Compared to women survivors without head injuries, women with IPV-related head injuries, on average, had 10-minute longer sleep latency, slept 24 minutes less per night, had trouble falling asleep six more times per month, and used sleep medications more often. Further study of sleep quality among women with IPV-related head injuries and interventions to address poor sleep warrant future investigation.