Perception of Sleep in Recovering Alcohol-Dependent Patients With Insomnia: Relationship With Future Drinking

Subjective and objective measures of poor sleep in alcoholic insomniacs predict relapse to drinking. Nonalcoholic insomniacs underestimate their total sleep time (TST) and overestimate their sleep onset latency (SOL) and wake time after sleep onset (WASO) compared with polysomnography (PSG). This study evaluated 3 hypotheses: (1) subjective SOL would predict frequency of future drinking; (2) participants would overestimate SOL and WASO and underestimate TST; and (3) higher amounts of over- and underestimates of sleep at baseline would predict worse drinking outcomes prospectively. Methods : Participants ( N =18), mean age 44.6 years (±13.2), underwent an adaptation night and then 2 nights of PSG 3 weeks apart. They also provided morning estimates of SOL, WASO, TST, and sleep efficiency (SE). Following the baseline PSG, participants were followed over 12 weeks. A 2-way ANOVA (night × method of measuring sleep) compared results and regression analyses predicted drinking. Drinking outcomes were defined as number of days drinking (DD) and number of heavy-drinking days (HDD) during 2 consecutive 6-week follow-up periods. Results : Most participants (72%) overestimated SOL by a mean of 21.3 (±36) minutes compared with PSG [ F (1, 14)=7.1, p <0.03]. Unexpectedly, 89% underestimated WASO by a mean difference of 48.7 (±49) minutes [ F (1, 14)=15.6, p