Conditions: Depression
Keywords: depression sleep treatment
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 68
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of the study is to determine whether changing sleep patterns improves response to an antidepressant medication.

Detailed description:
Depression is common and associated with social and economic costs. Although antidepressant medications are an effective treatment for depression, it can take as long as 6-8 weeks before symptoms improve, and 20-35% of individuals who use antidepressants still experience depression symptoms.

New treatments that accelerate response to antidepressants are important to reduce the burden of depression. The objectives of the proposed study are (1) to evaluate the effects of partial sleep deprivation compared to no sleep deprivation for improving response to 8 weeks of fluoxetine 20-40 mg treatment and (2) to examine the underlying sleep mechanisms of treatment response.

Participants who are eligible for the study will be randomly assigned to one of three sleep schedules for a 2-week period while taking fluoxetine: no sleep deprivation (8 hours time in bed), late bedtime (6 hours time in bed, with 2 hour bedtime delay) or early risetime (6 hours time in bed, with 2 hour advancement of rise time). Participants will spend a total of 7 nights in our sleep laboratory and will be followed on fluoxetine for an 8-week period.

Arms:
arm 1: Sleep scheduling plus fluoxetine. 8 hours time in bed for two weeks plus fluoxetine for 8 weeks arm 2: Sleep scheduling plus fluoxetine. 6 hours time in bed for two weeks plus fluoxetine for 8 weeks. Bedtime delayed by 2 hours. arm 3: Sleep scheduling plus fluoxetine. 6 hours time in bed for two weeks plus fluoxetine for 8 weeks. Risetime advanced by 2 hours.

Interventions: intervention 1: Sleep scheduling intervention 2: Fluoxetine
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 8 hours vs. 6 hours time in bed for two weeks, with either 2 hour advance of risetime, or 2 hour delay of bedtime intervention 2: 20-40 mg fluoxetine daily for 8 weeks

Protocol document: