Abstract
Study objectives
Military personnel experience high rates of traumatic experiences. Despite this, few
studies have examined the presence of nightmare disorder in military personnel. The
primary aim of this study was to examine diagnoses of nightmare disorder across the
4 largest branches of the active-duty US military.
Design & participants
Data and service branch densities used to derive the expected rates of diagnoses of
nightmare disorder were drawn from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database. The
branches examined included all active-duty services members in the US Army, Navy,
Marine Corps, and Air Force, who served between 2016 and 2021. Single-sample chi-square
goodness of fit tests were conducted to examine within-variable differences for military
relevant variables.
Results
Between 2016 and 2019, the incidence rates of nightmare disorder (per 10,000 service
members) in the US Department of Defense ranged from 11.3 in 2016 to a low of 6.9
in 2018. Service members who were classified as non-white, female, over the age of
35, married, in the Army, and/or a noncommissioned officer, were diagnosed at greater
rates relative to their representation in the military population (p < .001).
Conclusion
Our findings of higher than expected rates of nightmare disorder in older, senior
service members as well as those in the Army align with the known precipitant of nightmares,
and trauma. However, the reason for the finding that female and Black service members
have higher than expected rates is not readily apparent.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 09, 2023
Accepted:
December 22,
2022
Received in revised form:
November 29,
2022
Received:
February 24,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2022 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
