To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question: A systematic review and meta-analysis on the effect of post-trauma sleep on intrusive memories of analog trauma

Abstract

<p>Distressing intrusive memories of a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/traumatic-event" title="Learn more about traumatic event from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages">traumatic event</a> are one of the hallmark symptoms of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/posttraumatic-stress-disorder" title="Learn more about posttraumatic stress disorder from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages">posttraumatic stress disorder</a>. Thus, it is crucial to identify early interventions that prevent the occurrence of intrusive memories. Both, sleep and sleep deprivation have been discussed as such interventions, yet previous studies yielded contradicting effects. Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/systematic-review" title="Learn more about systematic review from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages">systematic review</a> aims at evaluating existing evidence by means of traditional and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses to overcome power issues of sleep research. Until May 16^th, 2022, six databases were searched for experimental analog studies examining the effect of post-trauma sleep versus wakefulness on intrusive memories. Nine studies were included in our traditional meta-analysis (8 in the IPD meta-analysis). Our analysis provided evidence for a small effect favoring sleep over wakefulness, log-ROM = 0.25, <em>p</em> < .001, suggesting that sleep is associated with a lower number of intrusions but unrelated to the occurrence of any versus no intrusions. We found no evidence for an effect of sleep on intrusion distress. Heterogeneity was low and certainty of evidence for our primary analysis was moderate. Our findings suggest that post-trauma sleep has the potential to be protective by reducing intrusion frequency. More research is needed to determine the impact following real-world trauma and the potential <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/clinical-significance" title="Learn more about clinical significance from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages">clinical significance</a>.<br></p>