The relationship between presleep cognitions and delayed sleep-onset in a sample of women seeking treatment for sexual assault

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate sleep disturbances in victims of sexual assault. The specific goals were; (I) To describe the sleep patterns and content of presleep thoughts of victims of sexual assault at multiple time frames, (2) To describe the content of pre-sleep thoughts in victims of sexual assault with and without sleep-onset disturbances, (3) To examine the relationship between pre-sleep thoughts and sleep-onset latency in victims of sexual assault, and (4) To examine the relationship between variables hypothesized to be related to sleep onset difficulties and presleep thoughts (i.e., depression, post trauma symptomatology) in victims of sexual assault for the purpose of exploring directions for future research.