Study of the Effect of Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT) of Nightmares

GGZ Centraal

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 2; Phase 1

Conditions: Nightmares; Mood Disorders; Anxiety Disorders; Personality Disorders

Treatments: Behavioral: Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00291031

WO-SG-114NM

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine whether Imagery Rehearsal Therapy(IRT) is effective in the reduction of the number of nightmares and the nightmare distress in a population of patients with psychiatric disorders.

Full description

Within the normal population 4-8% of the people suffer regularly from nightmares. Clinical observations show that nightmares are a common problem for patients who suffer from all kinds of psychiatric disorders, and not just for the patients diagnosed with PTSD. Often nightmares can lead to sleep disorders, which have a negative impact on emotional well-being and cognitive functioning during the day. As well as this a strong relationship between severity of nightmares and severity of psychopathology has been found. This gives a strong argument for treatment of nightmares as a symptom, separate from the psychiatric disorder.

A few controlled studies of the treatment of nightmares have been published, in which behavioral therapy, relaxation techniques, exposure and systematic desensitization have been studied, all of which have shown positive results. But these techniques do not seem to reduce the number of nightmares in patients who suffer from PTSD. These last few years more controlled studies of a cognitive behavioral technique called 'Imagery Rehearsal Therapy' (IRT) have been published. With IRT patients have to change the script of their nightmares into a different outcome, and rehearse this new script using cognitive imagery a few times a day.

Comparisons: treatment of nightmares with IRT compared to a waitlist control group who do not get IRT until 6 months later.

Enrollment: 112 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Patients referred to GGZ Centraal (previously Symfora groep) by their family doctor/GP for treatment of a psychiatric disorder. Patients that suffer from anxiety disorders, eating disorders, mood disorders and/or personality disorders.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Minimum of 3 nightmares per month
• Nightmares are associated with distress in daily life
• Subject wants to get treatment for the nightmares

Exclusion Criteria:

• Imagery rehearsal therapy for nightmares in the past
• Psychotic disorders
• Acute psychiatric crisis
• Mentally challenged or neuropsychiatric syndrome
• Severe addiction problems
• Insufficient mastery of the Dutch language

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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112 participants in 2 patient groups

IRT

Experimental group

Description:

Patients randomly assigned to the IRT condition receive Imagery Rehearsal Therapy after 4 weeks since the entrance into the trial next to their treatment as usual.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT)

TAU

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients that are randomly assigned to the waiting list control condition get treatment as usual (TAU) and complete the daily nightmare logs for a period of three months. These patients get the IRT intervention after waiting for 6 months.