Fluvoxamine and sleep disturbances in posttraumatic stress disorder

This study assesses the efficacy of fluvoxamine treatment on different doma ins of subjective sleep quality in Vietnam combat veterans with chronic pos ttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Medically healthy male Vietnam theater c ombat veterans (N = 21) completed a 10-week open label trial. Fluvoxamine t reatment led to improvements in PTSD symptoms and all domains of subjective sleep quality. The largest effect was for dreams linked to the traumatic e xperience in combat. In contrast, generic unpleasant dreams showed only a m odest response to treatment. Sleep maintenance insomnia and the item "troub led sleep" showed a large treatment response, whereas sleep onset insomnia improved less substantially. These therapeutic benefits contrast with publi shed reports that have found activating effects of Selective Serotonin Reup take Inhibitors on the sleep electroencephalogram.