Purpose of review: The present review provides a conceptual introduction to sleep and circadian research in psychiatric illness, and discusses recent experimental and intervention findings in this area.
Recent findings: In this review, studies published since January 2011 on circadian disturbance and psychiatric illness have been summarized.
Summary: Exciting new results have increasingly utilized objective and validated instruments to measure the circadian system in experimental studies. Since 2011, treatment research has still predominantly utilized self-report measures as outcome variables. However, research in the treatment domain for sleep/circadian disturbances comorbid with psychiatric illness has advanced the field in its work to broaden the validation of existing sleep treatments to additional patient populations with comorbid sleep/circadian disruptions and address how to increase access to and affordability of treatment for sleep and circadian dysfunction for patients with psychiatric disorders, and how to combine psychosocial treatments with psychopharmacology to optimize treatment outcomes.