ABSTRACT
Ahigh prevalence of depressive symptoms in delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS)patients is commonly reported.23,41,42,57 Regestein and Monk41 reported that 75%of their patients with DSPS had previous or present severe depression, compared with 16% of nonDSPS chronic insomnia patients and 2% of sleep apnea patients. Weitzman et al63
and Alvarez et al1 found psychopathologic abnormalities in half of adult DSPS patients. Ferber and Boyle23 reported a high prevalence of depression in adolescents with DSPS. Dagan et al17,18 found increased prevalence of personality disorders in DSPS patients and significantly higher scores on the dependent, passive-aggressive, borderline, sadistic, and anti-social subscales of the Personality Disorders Questionnaire as compared with normal sleepers. Some patients with DSPS do not have any particular psychopathology, i.e.,DSPS is not necessarily associated with depression. Moreover Schrader et al48 have explained the reported high prevalence of depression in DSPS as consequence of referral or self-referral bias.
