Polysomnographic findings in patients with panic disorder

Sleep disturbance is a common clinical problem in panic disorder. A few studies attempting to validate the subjective sleep complaints in panic disorder using polysomnography have demonstrated inconsistent results. Such discrepant polysomnography findings could be due to some additional confounding factors. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the sleep structure in a group of homogeneous patients with panic disorder. Fifteen non-medicated young adult male patients diagnosed to have panic disorder according to DSM-IV criteria were studied in the sleep laboratory on two consecutive nights. The sleep variables were compared with 13 age-and sex-matched healthy controls. The patients had decreased sleep efficiency and delta sleep, and moderately increased stage 1 and 2 sleep. These results demonstrate that delta sleep deficiency and disturbance in sleep continuity are mild in patients with panic disorder.