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Replicating and Progressing the Nightmare Cognitive Arousal Processing Model; The Second Night
Youngren, Westley A
Youngren, Westley A
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Abstract
Posttrauma nightmares are recurring nightmares that begin after a traumatic experience and can occur as often as 4-6 times per week. Although these nightmares are quite prevalent in trauma survivors, researchers have only recently begun to identify variables that may predict their occurrence. Specifically, research has identified presleep arousal (both physical and cognitive), sleep latency, and sleep disordered breathing as potential predictors of posttrauma nightmares. However, previous research includes some major methodological limitations, such as lack of physiological measures and a lack of diversity among participants. In order to replicate the previous findings as well as increase generalizability, the current study investigated predictors of nightmare occurrences in two separate samples: 12 female outpatient sexual assault survivors and 15 male inpatient veterans with mixed trauma history. Participants completed an initial assessment battery as well as 7 consecutive days of pre and postsleep diaries, which included measures of putative posttrauma nightmare triggers as well as measures of sleep quality and posttrauma nightmare occurrences. DREEM Headband devices were used to examine objective sleep quality and physical arousal. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multilevel modeling were used to examine the data. Results suggested that in both samples presleep cognitive arousal and sleep latency both independently predicted the occurrence of posttrauma nightmares. These data replicate earlier research and provide strong support to the idea that the time it takes to fall asleep and presleep cognitions play a pivotal role in triggering the occurrence of posttrauma nightmares. Lastly, our results could make meaningful contributions to posttrauma nightmare treatments by suggesting that if they want to reduce posttrauma nightmare occurrences, they may want to treat presleep cognitions and sleep onset latency.
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Date
2021-08-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Clinical psychology, Nightmares, PTSD, Sleep, Trauma Nightmares