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Sleep disruption is a hallmark feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Studies using ecological momentary assessment suggest sleep disruption predicts next-day PTSD symptoms, though evidence for the reverse effect is inconsistent. We examined bidirectional associations between subjective sleep and PTSD symptom severity in a pilot sample of sexual assault survivors with and without PTSD (N = 35). Participants completed a sleep diary each morning and self-report measures of PTSD symptom severity and negative affect 3 times/day for 1 week. Multilevel models revealed that shorter sleep duration and longer sleep onset latency significantly predicted higher PTSD symptoms the following day, controlling for prior PTSD symptoms and negative affect (p's 0.05). These findings suggest night-to-night disruptions in sleep may signal risk for increased PTSD symptoms. Implications for targeting sleep to treat PTSD symptoms are discussed.
Cox et al. (Tue,) studied this question.