Skip to content

Nightmare disorder in active-duty US military personnel.

Brian A Moore, Allison Brager, Jason Judkins, Vincent Mysliwiec

Sleep Health June 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2022.12.001 (opens in new tab)

Read Full Text
Relevant Not relevant

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational study Peer reviewed
Population Active-duty US military service members in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force who served between 2016 and 2021
Duration 2016 to 2021
Topics Dreaming
Keywords Clinical diagnoses Epidemiology Military personnel Nightmare disorder
Key findings Nightmare disorder incidence rates in the US Department of Defense ranged from 11.3 per 10,000 service members in 2016 to a low of 6.9 in 2018. Diagnoses were higher than expected among non-white, female, over-35, married, Army, and noncommissioned officer service members (p < .001); the authors note that elevated rates in older, senior service members and the Army align with trauma as a known precipitant, while reasons for higher rates among female and Black service members are not readily apparent.

Abstract

Military personnel experience high rates of traumatic experiences. Despite this, few studies have examined the presence of nightmare disorder in military personnel. The primary aim of this study was to examine diagnoses of nightmare disorder across the 4 largest branches of the active-duty US military. Data and service branch densities used to derive the expected rates of diagnoses of nightmare disorder were drawn from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database. The branches examined included all active-duty services members in the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, who served between 2016 and 2021. Single-sample chi-square goodness of fit tests were conducted to examine within-variable differences for military relevant variables. Between 2016 and 2019, the incidence rates of nightmare disorder (per 10,000 service members) in the US Department of Defense ranged from 11.3 in 2016 to a low of 6.9 in 2018. Service members who were classified as non-white, female, over the age of 35, married, in the Army, and/or a noncommissioned officer, were diagnosed at greater rates relative to their representation in the military population (p < .001). Our findings of higher than expected rates of nightmare disorder in older, senior service members as well as those in the Army align with the known precipitant of nightmares, and trauma. However, the reason for the finding that female and Black service members have higher than expected rates is not readily apparent.

Comparable studies

Other observational and cohort studies on dreaming, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... 2009 Observational study n = 6
Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years 2002 Prospective observational study n = 116
Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... 1987 Case-control study n = 11
The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams 2004 Observational cohort n = 147
Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Healthy human subjects 2018 Observational cohort n = 14

Citations in the library

Cited by 2

Cites 5

Related reading

Explore topics

Dreaming