Sleep wake cycle in adolescents girls with bulimia nervosa

Among the severe medical complications that exist in patients with Bulimia Nervosa they tend to complain also on sleep disturbances. The conflicting results from the few polisomnographic studies conducted in patients with BN along with the fact that no measures of sleep-wake cycles in natural circumstances have been reported, have led to this study. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an objective and subjective sleep-wake cycle in patients with BN compared to a healthy control group (CON). Method: Twenty-nine BN female and eighteen CON subjects were recruited. Sleep-wake patterns were monitored using ambulatory monitoring, mini-actigraphs (Min-Act), for one week. Each subject completed self-report questionnaires. Results: The self-reporting questionnaires revealed that patients with BN reported significantly more sleep disturbances than CON. The ambulatory sleep data revealed significant differences between BN and CON in Sleep Onset and Offset Time. In contrast to the objective results, the BN group subjectively complained more than CON on sleep disturbances. Discussion: BN had sleep onset and sleep offset of one hour later, which may be connected to binge purge episodes during the evening time.The discrepancies between objective and subjective sleep disturbances may relate to the confusion in the way patients with BN experience their body figure and appearance. Thus these disturbances in body and weight perception might show up in other somatic physiological complaints.