Sleep quality has been highlighted as a significant predictor of violent behavior through lifespan and across pathologies and a causal link has also been suggested. Despite the high prevalence of insomnia and its potential impact as a modifiable risk factor for aggressive behavior, a comprehensive synthesis of the literature is lacking. We aimed to systematically review the published works exploring the role of sleep in aggressive behaviors, especially focusing on forensic contexts.

We performed a systematic review searching the electronic databases PubMed and Scopus through December 2020 and selected articles that compared sleep of offenders and controls and articles that studied the association between sleep and aggression.

Ten articles were selected: 2 compared sleep in offenders and controls and 8 studied the association between sleep and aggression. Offenders showed worse sleep features than control both objectively and subjectively measured. Sleep quality was associated with aggression, but sleep quantity was less studied.

Sleep seems to have a prominent role in aggressive behaviors but studies concerning this topic are few; samples and methods were highly heterogeneous and most studies were cross-sectional. Future studies are needed to clarify the association between sleep disturbances and aggression, adopting a more systematized approach. Sleep assessment and treatment and might be particularly useful, especially in high-risk populations.

睡眠质量已被强调为贯穿整个生命周期和跨病理的暴力行为的重要预测指标，并且还提出了因果关系。尽管失眠的患病率很高，并且它作为攻击行为的可改变危险因素的潜在影响，但缺乏对文献的全面综合。我们旨在系统地审查已发表的探索睡眠在攻击性行为中的作用的作品，特别是关注法医背景。

我们对电子数据库 PubMed 和 Scopus 进行了系统审查，直至 2020 年 12 月，并选择了比较罪犯和对照组睡眠的文章以及研究睡眠与攻击性之间关联的文章。

选择了 10 篇文章：2 篇比较了罪犯和对照组的睡眠，8 篇研究了睡眠与攻击性之间的关联。客观和主观测量，犯罪者表现出比对照组更差的睡眠特征。睡眠质量与攻击性有关，但睡眠质量研究较少。

睡眠似乎在攻击性行为中起着重要作用，但关于这个主题的研究很少。样本和方法具有高度异质性，大多数研究是横断面的。未来的研究需要采用更系统化的方法来阐明睡眠障碍与攻击性之间的关联。睡眠评估和治疗可能特别有用，尤其是在高危人群中。