Table 5.

The longitudinal association between psychiatric symptoms and nightmares.

Citation	Assessment schedule	N	Sample	Measure of psychiatric symptom	Measure of nightmares	Key findings	Depr.	Anx.	PTSD	Psychosis
Levin and Fireman (2002)	Baseline assessment of psychiatric symptom and nightmare log over subsequent 3 weeks.	116	Students aged 18 or older.	Depression (BDI), anxiety (STAI), dissociation (DES), schizotypy (Perceptual Aberration-Magical Ideation scale, PerMag) and OCD, depression, anxiety, phobia, paranoia (SCL-90R).	Nightmare frequency (nightmare log) and distress (Nightmare distress Scale).	Individuals who reported ≥3 nightmares (frequent nightmares) across the 3 weeks had significantly higher baseline scores on OCD, paranoia, psychoticism, dissociation and schizotypy. Depression and anxiety were not significantly higher at baseline in those reporting frequent nightmares.	No	Mixed	N/A	Yes
Short, Allan, Stentz, Portero, & Schmidt, 2018	Baseline and ecological momentary assessment over 8 days.	30	Adults with PTSD, 93% had other psychiatric co-morbidities.	PTSD (SCID and PTSD Checklist), anxiety (BAI), depression (BDI-II).	One item related to traumatic nightmares from the PSQI PTSD addendum.	Daytime PTSD symptoms predicted nightmares later that night after controlling for baseline PTSD. Baseline depression, daily anxiety and daily stressors did not predict subsequent nightmares.	No	No	Yes	N/A

Anx. = anxiety. Depr = depression. PTSD = post-traumatic stress disorder.