Trial reportSchizophrenia bulletin2018
Disrupting Sleep: The Effects of Sleep Loss on Psychotic Experiences Tested in an Experimental Study With Mediation Analysis.
Trial report in Schizophrenia bulletin, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 61 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
61 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 130 citations in OpenAlex.
- Atypical Use of Visuospatial Context in Psychotic Psychopathology: A Meta-analysis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Nightmares and psychiatric symptoms: A systematic review of longitudinal, experimental, and clinical trial studies.Clinical psychology review · 2023Pooled it
- Sleep and schizophrenia: From epiphenomenon to treatable causal target.Schizophrenia research · 2020Pooled it
- Actigraphy studies and clinical and biobehavioural correlates in schizophrenia: a systematic review.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2019Pooled it
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Nightmares for Patients with Persecutory Delusions (Nites): An Assessor-Blind, Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2019Trial
- Sleep duration and psychotic experiences in patients at risk of psychosis: A secondary analysis of the EDIE-2 trial.Schizophrenia research · 2019Trial
- Treating Sleep Problems in Young People at Ultra-High Risk of Psychosis: A Feasibility Case Series.Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy · 2018Trial
- The Relationship of Early Sleep Improvement With Response to Pharmacotherapy in Unipolar Psychotic Depression.Journal of clinical psychopharmacologyTrial
- The central role of negative emotional states, rejection sensitivity and negative self-beliefs in a complex non-clinical paranoia network model.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- "Dream Insertion": A Case Report of a Novel Psychotic Symptom in a Male Inpatient With Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia.Case reports in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sleep Disturbances, Psychosis Symptoms, and Suicidal Ideation in First Episode Psychosis: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study.Schizophrenia bulletin open · 2026Article
- Towards an Integrative Account of Potential Mechanisms Mediating the Path From Sleep Dysfunction to Hallucinations.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Review
- Transient Psychotic Symptoms Induced by Acute Sleep Deprivation in a Factory Worker: A Case Report.Cureus · 2025Article
- Neurocognition After Perturbed Sleep (NAPS): A Protocol for an Experimental Study Examining the Impact of Sleep on Neurocognition, Functioning, and Clinical Indicators in People with Schizophrenia.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Predicting experiences of paranoia and auditory verbal hallucinations in daily life with ambulatory sensor data - A feasibility study.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Bidirectional associations between short sleep duration, insomnia symptoms, and psychotic-like experiences in adolescents.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- The effect of chronotype on social functioning in schizophrenic patients: examining the chain-mediating role of sleep quality and anxiety.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Associations between disturbed sleep and attenuated psychotic experiences in people at clinical high risk for psychosis.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Article
- Impaired Sleep Mediates the Relationship Between Interpersonal Trauma and Subtypes of Delusional Ideation.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2024Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Our view is that insomnia may be a causal factor in the occurrence of psychotic experiences such as paranoia and hallucinations. However, the causal relationship is not established. The aim of the study was to investigate the causal role of insomnia in psychotic experiences via a sleep restriction manipulation. The study was a within-subjects crossover design that included a planned mediation analysis. Sixty-eight nonclinical volunteers underwent a sleep loss condition (restricted to 4 h sleep for 3 nights) and a control condition (standard sleep) in randomized order in 2 consecutive weeks, with a weekend washout period. Psychotic experiences (paranoia, hallucinations, grandiosity, and cognitive disorganization) and candidate mediating variables (negative affect and related processes, working memory, decision making, and perceptual processing) were assessed before and after each condition. Actigraphy verified an average sleep duration of 5 h 15 min in the sleep loss condition, vs 6 h 58 min in the control condition. After the sleep loss condition, relative to the control condition, participants reported significant increases in paranoia, hallucinations, and cognitive disorganization, with no significant changes in grandiosity. The sleep loss condition was also associated with significant increases in negative affect, negative self and other cognitions, worry, and working memory impairment. Mediation analyses indicated that changes in psychotic experiences were mediated by changes in negative affect and related processes, but not memory impairment. The overall conclusion is that insomnia has a causal role in the occurrence of certain psychotic experiences, and that a key route is via negative affect.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.