DrMark Matthews

Adolescence is a key developmental stage for the onset of mental illness. It is also a time when getting enough sleep becomes a major challenge. Disrupted sleep represents an important potential risk factor for mental ill-health in young people but this is an area that has not yet been properly investigated. This project will build on already well-established links with schools in Scotland (the Schools Health and Wellbeing Improvement Research Network, called SHINE) to develop a UK-wide research collaboration focused on investigating sleep and mental health within schools. Schools-based research of this kind offers many advantages in terms of the large-scale recruitment of young people to research studies, plus schools-based treatments have considerable potential to influence long-term mental health outcomes at a population level. With input from pupils, parents and teachers, we will design and carry out a programme of public engagement focused on sleep and mental health within schools. We will also conduct a series of small-scale feasibility studies that will help us to design more comprehensive studies in the future. These studies will find the most effective way to collect objective sleep and mental health data, light exposure data (both natural light and artificial light), and biological samples in adolescents within schools. Overall, this project has the potential to establish a new schools-based adolescent mental health research consortium focused on understanding the complex relationships between sleep, light exposure and mental wellbeing, with a view to developing better interventions for mental health in the future.

The most recent national surveys indicate that alcohol use disorders adversely affect the well-being, work productivity, financial welfare and families of at least 15 million Americans. Every year a very substantial proportion of the individuals who suffer from alcohol use disorder (AUD) attempt to stop drinking, but somewhere between 40 and 60% will relapse within the first three months. One of the most consistent correlates of early recovery is sleep problems. Importantly, these sleep problems constitute a major risk factor for relapse. While some efforts have been made to address this critical risk factor through targeted interventions, to date these efforts have been limited to small populations of patients and have yet to receive broad dissemination. This grant builds on a Phase 1 award and has two central aims: Aim 1: Beta test CueToSleep and, based on user feedback, prepare the final version of the app for an adequately-powered RCT. Aim 2: Test the efficacy of CueToSleep in comparison to monitoring alone in terms of its ability to improve sleep and diminish the risk of relapse and examine moderators and mediators of treatment outcome.

The most recent national surveys indicate that alcohol use disorders adversely affect the well-being, work productivity, financial welfare and families of at least 15 million Americans. Every year a very substantial proportion of the individuals who suffer from alcohol use disorder (AUD) attempt to stop drinking, but somewhere between 40 and 60% will relapse within the first three months. One of the most consistent correlates of early recovery is sleep problems. Importantly, these sleep problems constitute a major risk factor for relapse. While some efforts have been made to address this critical risk factor through targeted interventions, to date these efforts have been limited to small populations of patients and have yet to receive broad dissemination. This grant has two aims:Aim 1: Achieve a better understanding of the specific sleep difficulties experienced by individuals with AUD who are in the early recovery phase (the first six months of attempted abstinence). Aim 2: Based on the data obtained in these interviews, create a Beta version of the proposed intervention, tentatively called, CueToSleep.

The goals are to use the power of smartphone sensors to obtain measurements of behavioral health and use those measurements to help individuals with depression or anxiety make changes in their behavior that are appropriate for them, reduce their symptoms and keep those symptoms from coming back.

The goal of this project is to develop sensing features from wearables and smartphones that can be used to build personalized models of circadian rhythm and sleep that is unobtrusive and to provide effective feed-back about disruptions to individuals to increase awareness of their patterns of sleep debt, productivity cy-cle and overall dyssynchrony.

Mental illness is a leading cause of disability and premature mortality in the western world, yet relat ively little research has been conducted into the use of technology to support the management and treatment of mental health problems. This project will develop a self-management system for individuals with bipolar disorder. The 2 major aims are to increase the amount of clinically valuable information and to increase ease individuals can re- ceive social support from their social network.