Objective and Subjective Components of the First-Night Effect in Young Nightmare Sufferers and Healthy Participants

The first-night effect-marked differences between the first- and the second-night sleep spent in a laboratory-is a widely known phenomenon that accounts for the common practice of excluding the first-night sleep from any polysomnographic analysis. The extent to which the first-night effect is presen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioral sleep medicine 2014-01, Vol.12 (6), p.469-480
Main Authors: Kis, Anna, Szakadát, Sára, Simor, Péter, Gombos, Ferenc, Horváth, Klára, Bódizs, Róbert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Case-Control Studies
Dreams - psychology
Female
Humans
Male
Polysomnography - instrumentation
Polysomnography - methods
Polysomnography - psychology
Self Report
Sleep
Sleep, REM
Time Factors
Wakefulness
Young Adult
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Summary:The first-night effect-marked differences between the first- and the second-night sleep spent in a laboratory-is a widely known phenomenon that accounts for the common practice of excluding the first-night sleep from any polysomnographic analysis. The extent to which the first-night effect is present in a participant, as well as its duration (1 or more nights), might have diagnostic value and should account for different protocols used for distinct patient groups. This study investigated the first-night effect on nightmare sufferers (NM; N = 12) and healthy controls (N = 15) using both objective (2-night-long polysomnography) and subjective (Groningen Sleep Quality Scale for the 2 nights spent in the laboratory and 1 regular night spent at home) methods. Differences were found in both the objective (sleep efficiency, wakefulness after sleep onset, sleep latency, Stage-1 duration, Stage-2 duration, slow-wave sleep duration, and REM duration) and subjective (self-rating) variables between the 2 nights and the 2 groups, with a more pronounced first-night effect in the case of the NM group. Furthermore, subjective sleep quality was strongly related to polysomnographic variables and did not differ among 1 regular night spent at home and the second night spent in the laboratory. The importance of these results is discussed from a diagnostic point of view.
ISSN:1540-2002
1540-2010
DOI:10.1080/15402002.2013.829062