Telehealth-delivered parent-based sleep-focused intervention for insomnia in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder: A randomized controlled study.

LAY ABSTRACT: Sleep problems are common in children with autism spectrum disorder. Although the effects of parent-based sleep intervention were shown to be promising, previous research was limited to the face-to-face service model, which might limit accessibility. This study examined a sleep-focused parent training group delivered via telehealth for treating insomnia in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder, which allowed parents to join the intervention remotely. Results showed that children in the intervention group had greater improvements in sleep and insomnia symptoms after treatment, as compared to those who only received care as usual. This sleep-focused treatment also led to improved daytime behaviors, especially externalizing problems such as hyperactivity and conduct problems, in children with autism spectrum disorder. Parents who had attended the training also reported reduced parental stress level after treatment. The findings supported the feasibility and promising effects of a brief parent-based sleep intervention delivered via telehealth for preschooler with autism spectrum disorder.

Effects of cognitive behavioural therapy and bright light therapy for insomnia in youths with eveningness: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Insomnia and eveningness are common and often comorbid conditions in youths. While cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) has been suggested as a promising intervention, it remains unclear whether it is sufficient to also address circadian issues in youths. In addition, despite that light has been shown to be effective in phase-shifting one's circadian rhythm, there has been limited data on the effects of bright light therapy and its combination with CBT-I on sleep and circadian outcomes in youths. The current protocol outlines a randomised controlled trial that examines the efficacy of CBT-I and CBT-I plus bright light therapy (BLT) in reducing insomnia severity, improving mood symptoms and daytime functioning (e.g. sleepiness, fatigue, cognitive function), and improving subjective and objective sleep and circadian measures compared to a waitlist control group. METHODS: We will carry out a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with 150 youths aged 12-24 who meet the criteria of insomnia and eveningness. Participants will be randomised into one of three groups: CBT-I with bright light therapy, CBT-I with placebo light, and waitlist control. Six sessions of CBT-I will be delivered in a group format, while participants will be currently asked to use a portable light device for 30 min daily immediately after awakening throughout the intervention period for bright light therapy. The CBT-I with light therapy group will receive bright constant green light (506 lx) while the CBT-I with placebo light group will receive the modified light device with the LEDs emitting less than 10 lx. All participants will be assessed at baseline and post-treatment, while the two active treatment groups will be additionally followed up at 1 month and 6 months post-intervention. The primary outcome will be insomnia severity, as measured by the Insomnia Severity Index. Secondary outcomes include self-reported mood, circadian, daytime functioning, and quality of life measures, as well as sleep parameters derived from actigraphy and sleep diary and neurocognitive assessments. Objective measures of the circadian phase using dim-light melatonin onset assessment and sleep parameters using polysomnography will also be included as the secondary outcomes. DISCUSSION: This study will be the first RCT to directly compare the effects of CBT-I and BLT in youths with insomnia and eveningness. Findings from the study will provide evidence to inform the clinical management of insomnia problems and eveningness in youths. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04256915. Registered on 5 February 2020.

Associations of evening-type and insomnia symptoms with depressive symptoms among youths.

BACKGROUND: Evening-type and insomnia symptoms are significantly related to each other and independently associated with depressive symptoms, yet few studies have examined the potential interaction between these two conditions. Therefore, we aimed to examine the associations of evening-type and insomnia symptoms with depressive symptoms among Chinese youths, with a specific focus on the joint effects of the two conditions on depressive symptoms. METHODS: Participants aged between 12 and 25 were invited to participate in an online survey from December 15, 2022, to May 26, 2023. Multivariate logistic regression models and additive interaction models were used to examine the independent and joint effects of chronotypes and insomnia symptoms on depressive symptoms, respectively. RESULTS: Of the 6145 eligible youths, the prevalence of evening-type and insomnia symptoms were 24.9 % and 29.6 %, respectively. Both evening-type (adjusted OR, [AdjOR]: 3.21, 95 % CI: 2.80-3.67) and insomnia symptoms (AdjOR: 10.53, 95 % CI: 9.14-12.12) were associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms. In addition, the additive interaction models showed that there is an enhanced risk of depression related to interaction between evening-type and insomnia symptoms (relative excess risk due to interaction, [RERI]: 11.66, 95 % CI: 7.21-16.11). CONCLUSIONS: The present study provided additional evidence demonstrating the presence of interaction between evening-type and insomnia symptoms, which can lead to a higher risk of depressive symptoms. Our findings argue the need for addressing both sleep and circadian factors in the management of depressive symptoms in young people.

Secular trends in sleep and circadian problems among adolescents in Hong Kong: From 2011-2012 to 2017-2019.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to investigate secular trends in sleep and circadian problems in Hong Kong Chinese adolescents. METHODS: This study analyzed cross-sectional data from two large-scale school-based sleep surveys conducted in 2011-2012 and 2017-2019. Sleep and circadian problems, including sleep-wake pattern, insomnia, chronotype, social jetlag, daytime sleepiness, and other sleep-related factors, were compared between two survey years. RESULTS: A total of 8082 adolescents (5639 students in 2011-2012 [Mean age: 14.4 years, 50.9% boys] and 2443 students in 2017-2019 [Mean age: 14.7 years, 54.0% boys]) were included in this 7-year study. The average time in bed of Hong Kong adolescents decreased from 8.38 hours to 8.08 hours from 2011-2012 to 2017-2019. There was a 0.28-hour delay in weekday bedtime, 0.54-hour advance in weekend wake-up time, and a 0.36-hour decline in average time in bed, resulting in increased trends of sleep loss (Time in bed <8h: OR = 2.06, 95%CI: 1.44-2.93, p < 0.01; Time in bed <7h: OR = 2.73, 95%CI: 1.92-3.89, p < 0.01), daytime sleepiness (OR = 1.70, 95%CI: 1.34-2.16, p < 0.01), and evening chronotype (OR = 1.26, 95%CI: 1.08-1.48, p < 0.01). The increased trend in insomnia disorder, however, was insignificant when covariates were adjusted. CONCLUSION: A secular trend of reduced time in bed, delay in weekday bedtime, advance in weekend wake-up time, increase in evening chronotype and daytime sleepiness from 2011-2012 to 2017-2019 were observed. There is a timely need for systematic intervention to promote sleep health in adolescents.

Exploring the Role of First-Person Singular Pronouns in Detecting Suicidal Ideation: A Machine Learning Analysis of Clinical Transcripts.

Linguistic features, particularly the use of first-person singular pronouns (FPSPs), have been identified as potential indicators of suicidal ideation. Machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) have shown potential in suicide detection, but their clinical applicability remains underexplored. This study aimed to identify linguistic features associated with suicidal ideation and develop ML models for detection. NLP techniques were applied to clinical interview transcripts (n = 319) to extract relevant features, including four cases of FPSP (subjective, objective, dative, and possessive cases) and first-person plural pronouns (FPPPs). Logistic regression analyses were conducted for each linguistic feature, controlling for age, gender, and depression. Gradient boosting, support vector machine, random forest, decision tree, and logistic regression were trained and evaluated. Results indicated that all four cases of FPSPs were associated with depression (p < 0.05) but only the use of objective FPSPs was significantly associated with suicidal ideation (p = 0.02). Logistic regression and support vector machine models successfully detected suicidal ideation, achieving an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.57 (p < 0.05). In conclusion, FPSPs identified during clinical interviews might be a promising indicator of suicidal ideation in Chinese patients. ML algorithms might have the potential to aid clinicians in improving the detection of suicidal ideation in clinical settings.

Multimodal digital assessment of depression with actigraphy and app in Hong Kong Chinese.

There is an emerging potential for digital assessment of depression. In this study, Chinese patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and controls underwent a week of multimodal measurement including actigraphy and app-based measures (D-MOMO) to record rest-activity, facial expression, voice, and mood states. Seven machine-learning models (Random Forest [RF], Logistic regression [LR], Support vector machine [SVM], K-Nearest Neighbors [KNN], Decision tree [DT], Naive Bayes [NB], and Artificial Neural Networks [ANN]) with leave-one-out cross-validation were applied to detect lifetime diagnosis of MDD and non-remission status. Eighty MDD subjects and 76 age- and sex-matched controls completed the actigraphy, while 61 MDD subjects and 47 controls completed the app-based assessment. MDD subjects had lower mobile time (P = 0.006), later sleep midpoint (P = 0.047) and Acrophase (P = 0.024) than controls. For app measurement, MDD subjects had more frequent brow lowering (P = 0.023), less lip corner pulling (P = 0.007), higher pause variability (P = 0.046), more frequent self-reference (P = 0.024) and negative emotion words (P = 0.002), lower articulation rate (P < 0.001) and happiness level (P < 0.001) than controls. With the fusion of all digital modalities, the predictive performance (F1-score) of ANN for a lifetime diagnosis of MDD was 0.81 and 0.70 for non-remission status when combined with the HADS-D item score, respectively. Multimodal digital measurement is a feasible diagnostic tool for depression in Chinese. A combination of multimodal measurement and machine-learning approach has enhanced the performance of digital markers in phenotyping and diagnosis of MDD.

The impact of the physical activity intervention on sleep in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Pharmacological treatments (i.e., melatonin) and non-pharmacological therapies (e.g., parent-based sleep education programs and behavioural interventions) have been found to result in improved sleep in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, there are several limitations to these treatment approaches, including concerns about the possible side-effects and safety, high-cost and uncertainties of long-term effects. Physical activity (PA) intervention is a promising behavioural intervention that has received increasing attention. However, the effects of PA intervention on sleep are still unclear in this clinical group. This study aimed to synthesize available empirical studies concerning the effects of PA interventions on sleep in children and adolescents with ASD. Following PRISMA guidelines, seven electronic databases: APA PsychInfo, CINAHL Ultimate, ERIC, MEDLINE, PubMed, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science, were searched from inception to March 2023. Randomized controlled trials/quasi-experimental designs with comparison groups were included. Initially, 444 articles were identified, 13 articles underwent systematic review, and 8 studies with control groups and sufficient statistical data were selected for meta-analysis. Compared to no-treatment control groups, PA interventions had a large positive effect on parent-reported general sleep problems, night awakenings, sleep resistance, sleep duration and actigraphy-assessed sleep efficiency in children and adolescents with ASD.

An Open-Label Pilot Trial of a Brief, Parent-Based Sleep Intervention in Children With ADHD.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of a brief parent-based behavioral sleep intervention in children with ADHD. METHODS: Families with a child with ADHD and parent-reported sleep problems received a brief parent-based sleep intervention, which involved two one-to-one consultation sessions and one telephone follow-up with the parent/caregiver. Child's sleep and clinical symptoms, and parental sleep and daytime functioning were assessed at baseline, 2-week post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up. RESULTS: Sixty eligible families (mean age of the child: 9.4 ± 1.5 years; boys: 75%) were recruited, and 43 (72%) completed the whole intervention. The intervention resulted in significant improvements in the child's sleep, clinical symptoms, and parental sleep and parenting stress, and these improvements were generally maintained at 3-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: The findings supported the promising effects of a brief parent-based sleep intervention on improving sleep and clinical symptoms in children with ADHD and parental sleep and parenting stress. Further randomized clinical trials with long-term follow-up are needed to test the robustness of the effectiveness of the intervention.

Altered Impulsivity Across Drug-Naïve Parkinsonism, Isolated Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder, and Their High-Risk Relatives.

OBJECTIVE: To determine multidimensional impulsivity levels across different early stages of α-synucleinopathy. METHODS: This cross-sectional study investigated motor and decisional impulsivity levels using a panel of computerized tasks among drug-naïve parkinsonism patients, isolated/idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) patients and their first-degree relatives (iRBD-FDRs), and control participants. Trait impulsivity and impulse control behaviors were assessed by self-reported questionnaires. RESULTS: A total of 27 drug-naïve parkinsonism patients, 157 iRBD patients, 66 iRBD-FDRs, and 82 control participants were recruited. Parkinsonism and iRBD patients had fewer numbers of extracted beads in beads task 1 and 2 (both p < 0.001), and a higher rate of irrational choice in task 1 (p = 0.046) before making decisions, and fewer numbers of pumps of unexploded blue balloons in the balloon analog risk task (p = 0.004) than control participants, indicating a higher level of reflection impulsivity and a lower level of risk taking, respectively. iRBD patients had more no-go errors in the go/no-go task than control participants (padjusted = 0.036), suggesting a higher level of motor impulsivity. iRBD-FDRs with dream-enactment behaviors had fewer numbers of extracted beads (p = 0.047) in beads task 2 than FDRs without dream-enactment behaviors, suggesting a possible higher level of reflection impulsivity. INTERPRETATION: A complex construct of altered impulsivity with decreased risk taking, but increased reflection and motor impulsivity, has already occurred at the prodromal and early stages of α-synucleinopathy, which have implications for underlying pathophysiology and clinical management of α-synucleinopathy, especially for impulse control behaviors upon dopaminergic drug treatment. ANN NEUROL 2024;95:544-557.

Detection of Suicidal Ideation in Clinical Interviews for Depression Using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning: Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Assessing patients' suicide risk is challenging, especially among those who deny suicidal ideation. Primary care providers have poor agreement in screening suicide risk. Patients' speech may provide more objective, language-based clues about their underlying suicidal ideation. Text analysis to detect suicide risk in depression is lacking in the literature. Objective: This study aimed to determine whether suicidal ideation can be detected via language features in clinical interviews for depression using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML). Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 305 participants between October 2020 and May 2022 (mean age 53.0, SD 11.77 years; female: n=176, 57%), of which 197 had lifetime depression and 108 were healthy. This study was part of ongoing research on characterizing depression with a case-control design. In this study, 236 participants were nonsuicidal, while 56 and 13 had low and high suicide risks, respectively. The structured interview guide for the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) was adopted to assess suicide risk and depression severity. Suicide risk was clinician rated based on a suicide-related question (H11). The interviews were transcribed and the words in participants' verbal responses were translated into psychologically meaningful categories using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Results: Ordinal logistic regression revealed significant suicide-related language features in participants' responses to the HAMD questions. Increased use of anger words when talking about work and activities posed the highest suicide risk (odds ratio [OR] 2.91, 95% CI 1.22-8.55; P=.02). Random forest models demonstrated that text analysis of the direct responses to H11 was effective in identifying individuals with high suicide risk (AUC 0.76-0.89; P<.001) and detecting suicide risk in general, including both low and high suicide risk (AUC 0.83-0.92; P<.001). More importantly, suicide risk can be detected with satisfactory performance even without patients' disclosure of suicidal ideation. Based on the response to the question on hypochondriasis, ML models were trained to identify individuals with high suicide risk (AUC 0.76; P<.001). Conclusions: This study examined the perspective of using NLP and ML to analyze the texts from clinical interviews for suicidality detection, which has the potential to provide more accurate and specific markers for suicidal ideation detection. The findings may pave the way for developing high-performance assessment of suicide risk for automated detection, including online chatbot-based interviews for universal screening.

Objective and subjective sleep in patients with non-seasonal major depressive disorder and eveningness - Results from a randomized controlled trial of bright light therapy.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This study examines the (dis)agreement between objective and subjective sleep and their prospective changes in a randomized controlled trial of bright light therapy (BLT) in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and eveningness. METHODS: A total of 93 adults were randomized to receive either 30-min daily of 10,000 lux BLT or 50lux placebo dim red light therapy (DRL group) for a total of 5 weeks. Actigraphic data were collected at the baseline and during the last week of treatment. (Dis)Concordance of diary and actigraphic sleep parameters were assessed by partial correlations and Bland-Altman plots, and the associations between these discrepancies to depression severity was assessed by linear regression models. Changes of sleep parameters were assessed by linear mixed models. RESULTS: Significant correlations were found between subjective sleep timings and chronotype to actigraphic parameters. Discrepancies between diary- and actigraphic-measures were observed, and patients with more severe depressive symptoms were associated with a greater under-estimation of total sleep time (TST). A greater advance in the diary-based time to fall sleep and rise time were achieved in the BLT group as compared to the DRL group, while diary-based wake after sleep onset (WASO), TST and sleep efficiency (SE) comparably improved with time in both groups. There was no significant difference between the two groups in the actigraphic parameters after treatment. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we found that depression severity influenced subjective report of sleep. BLT led to a greater advance in subjective sleep timings when compared to the placebo group.

Subtyping at-risk adolescents for predicting response toward insomnia prevention program.

BACKGROUND: Previous study has shown that a brief cognitive-behavioral prevention insomnia program could reduce 71% risk of developing insomnia among at-risk adolescents. This study aimed to evaluate the differential response to insomnia prevention in subgroups of at-risk adolescents. METHODS: Adolescents with a family history of insomnia and subthreshold insomnia symptoms were randomly assigned to a 4-week insomnia prevention program or nonactive control group. Assessments were conducted at baseline, 1 week, and 6- and 12-month after the intervention. Baseline sleep, daytime, and mood profiles were used to determine different subgroups by using latent class analysis (LCA). Analyses were conducted based on the intention-to-treat approach. RESULTS: LCA identified three subgroups: (a) insomnia symptoms only, (b) insomnia symptoms with daytime sleepiness and mild anxiety, and (c) insomnia symptoms with daytime sleepiness, mild anxiety, and depression. The incidence rate of insomnia disorder over the 12-month follow-up was significantly reduced for adolescents receiving intervention in subgroup 3 compared with the controls (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.37; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.13-0.99; p = .049) and marginally for subgroup 2 (HR = 0.14; 95% CI: 0.02-1.08; p = .059). In addition, adolescents who received intervention in subgroups 2 and 3 had a reduced risk of excessive daytime sleepiness (subgroup 2: adjusted OR [AdjOR] = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.23-0.87; subgroup 3: AdjOR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.13-0.76) and possible anxiety (subgroup 2: AdjOR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.27-0.82; subgroup 3: AdjOR = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.14-0.78) compared with the controls over the 12-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents at risk for insomnia can be classified into different subgroups according to their psychological profiles, which were associated with differential responses to the insomnia prevention program. These findings indicate the need for further phenotyping and subgrouping at-risk adolescents to develop personalized insomnia prevention.

Circadian preference and mental health outcomes in youth: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Youth is a vulnerable developmental period associated with an increased preference for eveningness and risk for developing psychopathology. Growing evidence suggests a link between eveningness and poorer mental health outcomes, but the findings in the current literature are inconsistent, and a comprehensive synthesis of evidence in this area remains lacking. This meta-analysis aimed to 1) synthesise the existing evidence on the association between circadian preference and mental health outcomes in youths and 2) explore potential sleep-related factors that may moderate the relationship between circadian preference and mental health outcomes. A systematic search of five electronic databases resulted in 81 observational studies included in the review. Eveningness was found to be significantly associated with general mental health (r = 0.20), mood-related disturbances (r = 0.17), and anxiety problems (r = 0.13). The qualitative review also identified that eveningness was associated with greater risks for psychotic symptoms and maladaptive eating behaviours. These findings highlighted the need to consider circadian preference in the clinical management of youth mental health problems. Further research is needed to examine the efficacy of a circadian-focused intervention in the context of youth mental health.

Objectively measured sleep continuity in children and adolescents with ADHD: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Sleep disturbances are often linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Consistent findings document that children and adolescents with ADHD report more sleep problems than their typically developing (TD) peers across subjective sleep domains. However, few differences between these groups were observed in objectively measured sleep parameters, such as polysomnography (PSG) and actigraphy. This study synthesized empirical studies to identify objectively measured sleep continuity differences between children and adolescents with ADHD and TD. We included observational research and baseline data from intervention studies between 5- to 18-year-old individuals with ADHD and their TD peers at five databases from inception and September 2022. This systematic review and meta-analysis of 45 articles, including 1622 children and adolescents with ADHD and 2013 TD, found that compared with TD, children and adolescents with ADHD have higher sleep latency and moderately decreased sleep efficiency measured by actigraphy. Polysomnography-measured differences between ADHD and TD were not significant. Medication status and comorbid psychiatric status significantly moderated the group differences in sleep efficiency between ADHD and TD. Also, the group differences in sleep latency between ADHD and TD were moderated by actigraphy recorded nights. These findings highlight the importance of reducing disparities in sleep parameters among children and adolescents with and without ADHD.

Sex differences in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Although rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) has been widely considered as a male-predominant parasomnia, the existing evidence for the sex difference in the risk of RBD in the general population was conflicting. The present study conducted a systematic review to explore the sex differences in the prevalence, comorbidities, clinical characteristics, and phenoconversion of RBD. One hundred thirty-five eligible studies were identified for the systematic review, and 133 were finally included in the meta-analysis. Males in the general population showed a trend for a higher risk of probable/possible RBD (pRBD), especially among the male older adults (aged ≥60). In the clinical populations, males showed a significantly higher risk of confirmed RBD, but not of pRBD. Among idiopathic RBD (iRBD) patients, males had a significantly earlier age onset of RBD compared with females. Male patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) had a higher risk of comorbid RBD. There was no significant sex difference in the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases in iRBD patients. Large scale and prospective studies utilizing stringent diagnostic criteria for RBD are recommended to further verify the sex differences in RBD and to investigate the mechanism underlying the sex difference.

School-Based Sleep Education Program for Children: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Insufficient sleep contributes negatively to child developmental processes and neurocognitive abilities, which argues the need for implementing interventions to promote sleep health in children. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a multimodal and multilevel school-based sleep education program in primary school children using a cluster randomized controlled design. Twelve schools were randomly assigned to either the sleep education or nonactive control groups. The sleep education group included a town hall seminar, small class teaching, leaflets, brochures, and a painting competition for children. Parents and teachers were invited to participate in a one-off sleep health workshop. Parental/caregiver-reported questionnaires were collected at baseline and 1-month follow-up. A total of 3769 children were included in the final analysis. There were no significant improvements observed in the sleep-wake patterns, daytime functioning, and insomnia symptoms between the two groups at follow-up, whereas the intervention group had significantly improved parental sleep knowledge than the controls (paternal: adjusted mean difference: 0.95 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.18 to 1.71]; maternal: adjusted mean difference: 0.87 [95% CI: 0.17 to 1.57]). In addition, children receiving the intervention had a lower persistence rate of excessive beverage intake (adjusted odds ratio: 0.49 [95% CI: 0.33 to 0.73]), and experienced greater reductions in conduct problems (adjusted mean difference: 0.12 [95% CI: 0.01 to 0.24]) compared with the controls at 1-month of follow-up. Moreover, a marginally significant reduction for emotional problems in the intervention group was also observed (adjusted mean difference: 0.16 [95% CI: -0.00 to 0.32]). These findings demonstrated that school-based sleep education was effective in enhancing parental sleep knowledge and improving behavioral outcomes in children, but not sufficient in altering the children's sleep-wake patterns and sleep problems.

Online social media poses opportunities and risks in autistic youth: implications for services from a qualitative study.

Background: Autistic people are vulnerable to developing mental health problems due to their difficulties in managing social situations and interpersonal relationships. The popular online social media (OSM) can be a potential solution to these concerns for their social lives as it allows non-face-to-face social interactions, however it remained unclear how this group is using these online platforms. This study explored their experiences of using online social media, and their perceived benefits and risks associated with this use. Method: Qualitative data was collected through in-depth face to face interviews. We recruited 13 autistic young adults who were with normal intelligence from two community centers in Hong Kong. Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured format by experienced clinical psychologist and social workers. Results: Four themes were identified from the data, namely: (1) Paradox of using OSM to supplement social needs; (2) Unpleasant social interactions in the online environment; (3) Restricted and repetitive pattern of interest leading to troubles in OSM use, and; (4) Privacy and personal safety issues. The results suggested that while OSM could be a useful tool for our participants to connect with existing friends and to meet new ones, their limitations, such as difficulties in understanding languages and social interaction as well as restricted patterns of interests could potentially put them at risk, including interpersonal conflicts, cyber-bullying, financial scams, as well as unwanted sexual experiences. These experiences not only paradoxically increased their sense of loneliness and their distance from others, but also resulted in a negative impact on their mood and functioning. Conclusion: This qualitative study provided some insights into the OSM use among autistic young adults. OSM could be a useful tool to overcome potential limitations in social interactions, but at the same time it could potentially bring detrimental consequences. In order to maximize the benefits of online social networking, there is a need for timely guidance and support to use OSM among autists, and for psychoeducation to promote awareness, and enable adequate skills and behaviors attainment associated with safe OSM use.

The impacts of intra-individual daily sleep variability on daytime functioning and sleep architecture in healthy young adults: An experimental study.

Sleep variability is commonly seen in the young populations. This study aimed to examine the impacts of experimentally induced sleep variability on sleepiness, mood, cognitive performance and sleep architectures among young adults. Thirty-six healthy individuals (aged 18-22 years) were randomly assigned to either variable sleep schedule (n = 20) or control (n = 16) groups. The protocol involved 1 week of regular sleep (time in bed = 7.5 hr) in the home setting, followed by one adaptation night (time in bed = 7.5 hr), one baseline night (time in bed = 7.5 hr), and 6 nights of sleep manipulation in the laboratory monitored by polysomnography (three cycles of variable sleep schedule by changing daily time in bed alternating between 6 hr and 9 hr for variable sleep schedule group versus fixed sleep schedule with daily time in bed for 7.5 hr for control group). Sleepiness, mood, sustained attention, processing speed, response inhibition and working memory were measured every morning and evening. The variable sleep schedule group reported a higher level of sleepiness, especially in the mornings, and increased negative mood in the evenings. There were no significant differences in positive mood, cognitive performance and sleep macro- and micro-structures. Our results showed the negative effects of sleep variability on daytime functioning especially sleepiness and negative mood, suggesting the need to address variable sleep schedules through sleep intervention.

Early- and late-onset narcolepsy: possibly two distinct clinical phenotypes.

PURPOSE: To investigate the clinical characteristics and the risk factors associated with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in patients with early- and late-onset narcolepsy. METHODS: Patients with narcolepsy were consecutively recruited. All patients were separated into early- and late-onset groups according to the onset age of disease ≤ 15 and > 15 years, respectively. Demographic, clinical, and sleep parameters were compared between the two groups. Linear regressions were performed to examine the risk factors of subjective and objective EDS in patients with early- and late-onset narcolepsy. RESULTS: A total of 101 patients with narcolepsy (median age at recruitment = 18.0 years) were classified into an early-onset group (67 patients with median age at onset = 12.0 years) and a late-onset group (34 patients with median age at onset = 28.5 years). Compared with early-onset group, late-onset group scored significantly higher on Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Ullanlinna Narcolepsy Scale (UNS), sleep paralysis, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) questionnaire-Hong Kong (all P < 0.050). UNS-cataplexy and sleep paralysis had significantly positive associations with subjective EDS, and N1%, arousal index, and periodic limb movements index were positively associated with objective EDS in the early-onset group (all P < 0.050). However, these associations were not observed in late-onset narcolepsy. CONCLUSION: Late onset narcolepsy had more severe self-reported narcolepsy symptoms. REM sleep related symptoms and disrupted nighttime sleep were associated with EDS in early-onset narcolepsy. These findings suggest that early- and late-onset narcolepsy may represent two distinct phenotypes.