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More cases of sexsomnia

Written by: David Castillo on July 7th, 2010

More cases of sexsomnia | read this item

According to a sleep center, almost 8 percent of its patients have sexsomnia, and it is more prominent among men than women.

A study, presented at SLEEP 2010, indicated that more than 7 percent of sleep disorder patients initiated or engaged in sexual activity during sleep. Sexsomnia’s prevalence are three times higher among males compared to females.

“There have been no previous studies of how frequently sexsomnia occurs,” explained Dr. Sharon Chung, sleep research laboratory staff scientist in the department of psychiatry at the University Health Network in Toronto. “While our finding of 8% of people reporting sexsomnia seems really a high number, it should be stressed that we only studied patients referred to a sleep clinic. So, we would expect the numbers to be much lower in the general population.”

The study was conducted on 832 consecutive patients (428 men and 404 women), who were diagnosed with a suspected sleep disorder. The patients were asked to answer a questionnaire about sleep disorder symptoms, sleep behavior, drowsiness, fatigue, and mood.

While sexsomnia was surprisingly prevalent, it is rarely mentioned by patients to their doctor. Based on the data, only four of the 832 survey participants complained about sexsomnia during consultations with their sleep specialist.

Source: Sleep Review