Dysregulated arousal as a pathway linking childhood neglect and clinical sleep disturbances in adulthood

A history of childhood maltreatment has a well-established association with clinical sleep disturbances in adulthood, which is a transdiagnostic contributor to many chronic diseases. Determine whether actigraphy-measured indices of dysregulated arousal during sleep explain associations between abuse or neglect in childhood and clinical sleep disturbances in adulthood. Participants were 646 individuals, ages 25–83 (59.3% female) from the MIDUS II Biomarker, Refresher studies. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, wore an actigraph for seven days, and rated sleep quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Both neglect (b = 0.66, SE = 0.33, p = .04) and abuse (b = 1.09, SE = 0.32, p