Preliminary validation of a brief measure of the frequency and severity of nightmares: The Trauma-Related Nightmare Survey

ABSTRACT

Nightmares and sleep disturbances are gaining attention as targets of treatment interventions for trauma-exposed populations. Measures in trials evaluating these interventions tend to utilize proprietary measures of nightmare characteristics, which makes it challenging to compare findings across studies. The Trauma-Related Nightmare Survey is a questionnaire that was initially developed for utilization in efficacy studies of Exposure, Relaxation, and Rescripting Therapy. Preliminary examinations of the psychometric properties have demonstrated good test–retest reliability and convergent validity. The present brief report provides an updated examination of these properties and offers the first open publication of the measure for general use. Results support previous findings that the Trauma-Related Nightmare Survey demonstrates good test–retest reliability (r = .73) and moderate to strong convergent validity (rs = .44–.78) with other commonly utilized measures of sleep and mood symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• nightmares
• PTSD
• sleep disturbances