Distinguishing Current From Remitted Posttraumatic Stress Disorder—Reply

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In our article entitled “Sleep in Lifetime Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Community-Based Polysomnographic Study,”¹ we report polysomnographic findings from a large study nested in a well-described, longitudinal epidemiologic sample. The PTSD subset comprises lifetime cases, both current and past, combined based on the absence of any evidence suggesting group differences. We found no evidence for clinically relevant sleep disturbances in lifetime PTSD but higher rates of arousal from REM, a finding of uncertain clinical relevance. Clearly, our findings do not lead us to deny the possibility that some PTSD cases have sleep disturbances and could benefit from treatment.