ACTIGRAPHIC SLEEP MONITORING IN POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER (PTSD) PATIENTS

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients frequently complain that they suffer from sleep disturbances. To date, the polysomnographic st udies that have attempted to study PTSD patients' subjective complaint s of sleep difficulties have produced conflicting results. The objecti ve of the present study was to compare PTSD patients' subjective compl aints of poor sleep and objective actigraphic recordings of their slee p over a period of several consecutive nights. The results indicate th at PTSD patients do not suffer from poorer sleep than a control group, based on actigraphic measures, and that their subjective sleep evalua tion is inconsistent with objective sleep measures. These patients fai l to correctly estimate their sleep. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.