Pilot Study of a Sleep Health Promotion Program for College Students.

OBJECTIVES: We conducted a pilot study of a sleep health promotion program for college students. The aims of the study were to 1) determine the feasibility of the program, and 2) explore changes in sleep knowledge and sleep diary parameters. DESIGN: Open trial of a sleep health promotion program for college students. SETTING: A small liberal arts university in southwestern Pennsylvania. PARTICIPANTS: University students (primarily female). INTERVENTION: Active intervention components included individualized email feedback based on each participant's baseline sleep diary and an in-person, group format presentation on sleep health. MEASUREMENTS: Participants completed online questionnaires and sleep diaries before and after the health promotion intervention. Online questionnaires focused on sleep knowledge and attitudes toward sleep, as well as Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) sleep and psychosocial assessments. RESULTS: Of participants who completed some aspect of the study, 89% completed at least one intervention component (in-person lecture and/or sleep diary). Participants reported significant improvement in sleep knowledge and changes in sleep diary parameters (decreased sleep onset latency and time spent in bed, resulting in greater sleep efficiency). Sleep duration also increased by 30 minutes among short sleepers who obtained <7 hours sleep at baseline. CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary evaluation of a brief program to promote sleep health suggests that it is feasible and acceptable to implement, and that it can favorably alter sleep knowledge and behaviors reported on the sleep diary in college students. Controlled trials are warranted.

Sleep duration is associated with dyslipidemia in patients with bipolar disorder in clinical remission.

BACKGROUND: The pathways to increased cardiovascular risk in bipolar disorder include health behaviors, psychosocial stress and long-term medication exposure. However, the evidence that the association between cardiovascular risk factors and bipolar disorder remains significant after controlling for these co-factors suggests that additional important risk factors have yet to be identified. Our hypothesis is that disturbances in the sleep-wake cycle are an important and under-recognized pathway through which affective disorders lead to increased cardiovascular risk. METHODS: In patients with bipolar disorder type 1 in clinical remission, we: 1) explored whether sleep disturbance predicted the endorsement of NCEP ATP-III criteria for dyslipidemia, independent of other lifestyle factors and 2) tested the association between low HDL (NCEP-ATP III) and sleep duration measured with actigraphy over an eight-day period. RESULTS: Median sleep duration is significantly associated with low HDL. The risk of having low HDL increases by 1.23 with every 30 minutes of reduced sleep time. LIMITATIONS: Since sleep patterns in patients with bipolar disorder are variable and irregular, it is possible that other sleep characteristics, not present during the span of our study, or the variability itself may be what drives the increased cardiovascular risk. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep characteristics of patients with bipolar disorder in clinical remission are associated with cardiovascular risk. More specifically, sleep duration was associated with low HDL. Clinicians should pay special attention to sleep hygiene in treating individuals with bipolar disorder, even when they are in clinical remission.

Comparative outcomes among the problem areas of interpersonal psychotherapy for depression.

BACKGROUND: Although interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is an efficacious treatment for acute depression, the relative efficacy of treatment in each of the four IPT problem areas (grief, role transitions, role disputes, interpersonal deficits) has received little attention. We evaluated the specificity of IPT by comparing treatment success among patients whose psychotherapy focused on each problem area. Moreover, we sought to understand how the patient characteristics and interpersonal problems most closely linked to the onset of a patient's current depression contributed to IPT success. METHODS: Patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for an episode of major depressive disorder (n=182) were treated with weekly IPT. Remission was defined as an average Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression 17-item score of 7 or below over 3 weeks. Personality disorders were diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders. RESULTS: Contrary to our prediction that patients whose treatment was focused on interpersonal deficits would take longer to remit, survival analyses indicated that patients receiving treatment focused on each of the four problem areas did not differ in their times to remission. Nor were patients in the interpersonal deficits group more likely to have an Axis II diagnosis. Patients whose treatment focused on role transitions remitted faster than those whose treatment focused on role disputes, after controlling for covariates. CONCLUSION: With skillful use of IPT strategies and tactics and with careful medication management where appropriate, patients in this study whose treatment focused on each problem area were treated with equal success by trained IPT clinicians.