Violent Behavior During Sleep: UK Epidemiological Study of 4,972 Adults

Maurice M. Ohayon from the Institut national de psychiatrie légale Philippe-Pinel conducted a study on violent or injurious behavior during sleep. The research involved a representative UK sample of 4,972 men and women aged 15 to 100, with 2% of respondents reporting current episodes. The study identified associations between violent sleep behavior and factors like night terrors, daytime sleepiness, and anxiety or mood disorders.

Use Cases

• Predicting risk of violent sleep behavior based on reported nocturnal symptoms like sleep talking or hypnic jerks.
• Analyzing comorbidity patterns between violent sleep behavior and psychiatric conditions such as anxiety or mood disorders.
• Modeling associations between lifestyle factors like smoking, caffeine, and alcohol intake with reported sleep disturbances.
• Identifying demographic or health factors that characterize a rare but serious sleep condition for clinical screening.

Strengths

• Study includes a large, representative sample of 4,972 individuals from the United Kingdom.
• Data collection used the Sleep-EVAL expert system, a tool specifically designed for diagnostic telephone surveys.
• Findings quantify the prevalence of violent sleep behavior at 2% and identify multiple associated sleep and mental health factors.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Data may reflect geographic and methodological bias inherent to a single telephone survey in the UK.

Provenance

Source

Maurice M. Ohayon, Institut national de psychiatrie légale Philippe-Pinel

Collection Method

Telephone interview directed by the Sleep-EVAL expert system.

Geography

United Kingdom