Posted by Annapaola Prestia Laboratory of Epidemiology Neuroimaging and Telemedicine, IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio FBF, The National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimer’s and Mental Diseases, Brescia, Italy

Nightmares are defined as disturbing mental experiences that generally occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Nightmare complaints are quite frequent in general population and many studies have reported gender differences in nightmare frequency. In order to study this difference systematically, data from 111 independent studies have been included in this meta-analysis. Overall, it indicates that there is a small but substantial gender difference in nightmare frequency: women tend to report nightmares more often than men. This gender difference, however, was found in adolescents and young and middle-aged adults but not in children or older persons.
There are several candidate variables like dream recall frequency, depression, childhood trauma, and insomnia which might explain this gender difference because these variables are related to nightmare frequency and show stable gender differences themselves. Investigating factors explaining gender difference in nightmare frequency might be helpful in deepening the understanding regarding nightmare etiology and possibly gender differences in other mental disorders like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

February 21^st, 2011