Short NA, et al. – This research strived to gauge the predictors of insomnia and nightmares among individuals with post–traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It was deduced that only daytime PTSD symptoms and fear of sleep speculated the nightmares. Both sleep– and PTSD–related factors appeared to play a role in maintaining insomnia among those with PTSD. On the other hand, the nightmares were probably associated, more closely with only PTSD–related factors.

Methods

• Both PTSD-specific (i.e. PTSD symptoms, comorbid anxiety and depression, nightmares and fear of sleep) and insomnia-specific (i.e. dysfunctional beliefs about sleep, insomnia-related safety behaviours and daily stressors) predictors of sleep quality, efficiency and nightmares were evaluated in this research.
• The enrollment consisted of 30 individuals with PTSD.
• Candidates underwent ecological momentary analysis to ascertain how daily changes in PTSD- and insomnia-related factors caused changes in sleep.

Results

• Multi-level modelling analyses were performed.
• After accounting for baseline PTSD symptom severity, PTSD-specific factors correlated with insomnia symptoms.
• This was not found in the case of insomnia-specific factors.