Digital Sleep Monitoring and Education in Therapeutic Communities
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Examining the suitability and tolerability of digital sleep monitoring and sleep education in therapeutic communities for people with personality disorder
IRAS ID
279427
Contact name
Niall McGowan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Clinical Trials and Research Governance, University of Oxford
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 31 days
Research summary
Sleep is a fundamental aspect of health that increasingly encroached upon by modern life. For people with mental health conditions the consequences of poor sleep are particularly pronounced. Our on-going work focuses on understanding and facilitating better sleep in people with personality disorders.
Personality disorders (PD) comprise a cluster of psychiatric diagnoses in which an individual diverges significantly from the normal population in terms of how they think, perceive, feel or relate to others. PD symptoms are usually persistent, unlike many other psychiatric disorders where symptoms emerge intermittently. Thus, treatment is usually challenging and resource consuming. Sleep disturbance is common in PDs but receives little attention or treatment. An important barrier to studying these patients and developing new therapies in for sleep in PD is that we do not know about patients’ attitudes towards standard approaches that monitor or treat sleep problems. This study will firstly clarify this matter by consulting patient groups that have been invited to use sleep diaries and wrist-worn digital sleep monitors (called ‘actigraphs’) on their experiences with using technology.
Therapeutic communities (TC) are supportive spaces for individuals with personality disorders to relay their experiences and garner support from communal sharing. This project will engage and consult therapeutic community members about their experiences with sleep monitoring devices in order to illuminate how participants with PD perceive such equipment used in a TC environment. Furthermore, we will assess the suitability of the TC as a space to deliver a single stand-alone educational session on tips for improving sleep using previously proven advice.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/NW/0233
Date of REC Opinion
18 Jun 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion