Philip Chow, PhD, Earns $3.3 Million to Test Digital Programs for Treating Insomnia and Depression in Breast Cancer Survivors

Philip Chow, PhD

Breast cancer survivors are more likely to experience insomnia and depression than people in the general population. This is a serious problem because these two conditions often feed into each other; having insomnia can make depression worse, and being depressed can make it harder to sleep. Unfortunately, there are not enough trained professionals to provide in-person treatment for everyone who needs it. The good news is that digital health programs—fully automated behavioral treatments that can be delivered through computers or smartphones—have been shown to help people manage either insomnia or depression on their own. But there have been no attempts to discover how digital health programs can be used in tandem to help survivors who suffer from more than one of these conditions.

In a new study backed by a $3.3 million grant from the NIH National Cancer Institute, Philip Chow, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, is testing how to optimally sequence two types of digital programs: one focused on improving sleep, and one focused on improving mood, to more efficiently reduce symptoms of both insomnia and depression in breast cancer survivors. Participants in the project will be initially randomized to receive an insomnia digital program, a depression digital program, or a patient education program. Those who received the insomnia program and who still have clinically meaningful symptoms of both insomnia and depression, will be randomly assigned to either receive the depression program or not; similarly, those who received the depression program and who still have clinically meaningful symptoms of both conditions will be randomly assigned to either receive the insomnia program or not. Findings from this project will inform a multi-layered, flexible treatment model that delivers these programs in the right sequence, at the right times, and to the right people, to help breast cancer survivors reduce both their insomnia and depression symptoms more effectively.