Clinical correlates of poor sleep quality in posttraumatic stress disorder

Abstract

Sleep disturbances (SD) are a core clinical feature of PTSD. The goal of the study was to determine the influence of patient-related characteristics, disorder-related characteristics, and psychiatric comorbidity on the severity of SD in PTSD outpatients (n = 367) who were not recruited for a sleep study. Increased severity of SD paralleled increasing overall PTSD severity. The severity of SD did not differ according to gender, age groups, types of trauma, PTSD chronicity, or psychiatric comorbidity. Results suggest that age, gender, and psychiatric comorbidity have minimal impact on sleep quality in this PTSD sample. The inclusion of PTSD patients who were not specifically seeking treatment for SD reinforces the study findings.