Research interest concerning associations between sleep characteristics and suicidality in psychopathology has been growing. However, possible linkages of suicidality to sleep characteristics in terms of sleep quality and chronotypes among depressive patients have not been well documented. In the current study, the authors investigated the possible effects of sleep quality and chronotype on the severity of depressive symptoms and suicide risk in patients with depressive disorder and healthy controls. The study was conducted on 80 patients clinically diagnosed with major depression and 80 healthy subjects who were demographically matched with the patient group. All participants completed a questionnaire package containing self-report measures, including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), and Suicide Ideation Scale (SIS), and subjects were interviewed with the suicidality section of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). Results are as follows: (a) logistic regression analyses revealed that poor sleep quality and depression symptom severity significantly predicted onset of major depression; (b) morningness-type circadian rhythm may play as a significant relief factor after onset of major depression; (c) sleep variables of chronotype and sleep quality did not significantly predict suicide ideation after controlling for depressive symptoms in the major depression group; and (d) suicide ideation and poor sleep quality were antecedents of depression symptom severity in patients with major depression, and in healthy controls. Findings are discussed under the theoretical assumptions concerning possible relations between chronotype, sleep quality, depression, and suicidality.

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Fluoxetine may be regarded as a safe and effective alternative in the treatment of premature ejaculation.

In order to examine the co-occurrence of nightmares with dissociative experiences in the adolescent population and to demonstrate the impact of childhood traumatic events in this association, 292 undergraduate students were interviewed for childhood traumatic events. The Van Dream Anxiety Scale (VDAS) and Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) were also administered to the subjects. For nightmares a 7.5% prevalence of 'often' and a 58.2% prevalence of 'sometimes' was found for college students. Nightmare prevalence was higher in women than in men. The rate of childhood traumatic experiences was higher in nightmare sufferers than in those who did not have nightmares. The subjects who had undergone physical and sexual abuse had higher VDAS global scores and item scores. When the DES scores of the subjects with nightmares were compared with that of those who had never reported nightmares, the subjects with nightmares had significantly higher scores on DES. The DES scores were also negatively correlated with duration of nightmares in subjects who had childhood traumatic experiences. These findings suggest that the subjects with childhood traumatic events failed to psychologically integrate their traumatic experiences and used dissociation as a coping strategy.

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