[Psychological aspects of sleep deprivation. A controlled study on depressives and normals (author's transl)].

A study of total sleep deprivation for one night was performed on 12 patients with endogenic depression and 10 with neurotic depression, as well as a control group of 10 normals. The study was designed to answer the following questions: 1. Are the correlations between self-ratings and clinical assessments of sleep deprivation effects satisfactory? 2. Are sleep deprivation effects modified by the personality dimensions extraversion and neuroticism? 3. What effects do the interactions of rater and patient and their expectations have on therapeutic results? The findings confirmed the therapeutic effects of sleep deprivation in depressives. The correlations between self-ratings and clinical assessments were satisfactory. The therapeutic effects were not significantly influenced by psychiatrist-patient interactions or their expectations. The relevance of these results to explanations of sleep deprivation effects is discussed.