---
title: Do women with PMS have worse sleep problems than other women?
description: Yes. Women with PMS reported significantly more sleep difficulties, including bad dreams, waking at night, not waking at the expected time, morning tiredness,
url: https://niyora.com/research/papers/sleep-in-the-premenstrual-phase-a-self-report-study-of-pms-patients-and-normal-1988/
---

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- Do women with PMS have worse sleep problems than other women?

Study, 1988

# Do women with PMS have worse sleep problems than other women?

Yes. Women with PMS reported significantly more sleep difficulties, including bad dreams, waking at night, not waking at the expected time, morning tiredness, and racing thoughts at night and upon waking.

 Early or limited evidence

Women from a PMS clinic and women from the general population

## What they did

Women from a PMS clinic and women from the general population (both with and without premenstrual sleep problems) completed a sleep questionnaire.

## What they found

PMS clinic patients reported much worse sleep than women in both other groups. They frequently reported unpleasant dreams, waking during the night, failure to wake at the expected time, tiredness in the morning, and heightened mental activity during the night and when waking. These sleep differences allowed the three groups to be distinguished with 82% accuracy.

## What it means for you

Sleep problems are an important part of PMS and need specific clinical attention. The main limitation is that this study relied on what women reported about their sleep rather than actual measurement of sleep patterns.

82%

accuracy of distinguishing groups by sleep problems

## About the study

Original title Sleep in the premenstrual phase: a self-report study of PMS patients and normal controls Authors Mauri M, Reid RL, MacLean AW Journal Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica Year 1988 Study design Study Read the paper [doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1988.tb06304.x](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1988.tb06304.x)

## Topics

[Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)](https://niyora.com/research/topics/condition-pms/)[Sleep and insomnia](https://niyora.com/research/topics/symptom-sleep/)

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