CancerNCT07318545
Intervention for Chronic Insufficient Sleep in Young Adult Cancer Patients and Survivors
A study testing Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and Sleep education and skills in people with Cancer, run by Medstar Health Research Institute.
Trial summary
Young adult cancer survivors (YACS) commonly experience chronic insomnia due to many factors such as cancer related symptoms, effects of anti-cancer therapies, co-morbid mood disorders, and/or other psychosocial and economic stressors. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 to 42 years
- Conditions the study is for
- Cancer
- What is being tested?
- Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and Sleep education and skills
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 74 participants
- Where
- No sites listed yet
- Study dates
- 4 Jan 2027to 31 May 2028
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 to 42 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult
Who may be able to join
- Age 18-42 at time of enrollment
- history of cancer diagnosis (any type) diagnosed at/after age 15, received all treatment before age 40
- at least 6 months from date of cancer diagnosis
- history of chronic sleep disorder with Insomnia Severity Index >/= 8
Who cannot join
- Refusal to try the study intervention
- diagnosed untreated obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, or restless leg syndrome
- narcolepsy, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and/or poorly controlled psychiatric diagnoses
- disease-related prognosis of less than 6 months or currently enrolled in hospice care
- planned travel out of the continental United States during the study period.
Trial locations and contacts
No sites are listed yet. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
About this study
Official title: Intervention for Chronic Insufficient Sleep in Young Adult Cancer Patients and Survivors: Randomized Controlled Trial
Young adult cancer survivors (YACS) commonly experience chronic insomnia due to many factors such as cancer related symptoms, effects of anti-cancer therapies, co-morbid mood disorders, and/or other psychosocial and economic stressors. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the gold standard for insomnia management but remains challenging to deliver to patients due to limited numbers of trained therapists, inconvenient scheduling availability, or prohibitive therapy costs. To address this critical gap in young adult cancer survivorship, the investigators propose to develop and test efficacy of the More Sleep Hours Electronic Education Program (More SHEEP), a novel system of smart speaker, smart lighting, and specialized Wi-Fi router that delivers AI-driven CBT-I to patients at home.
Read the detailed description
Insomnia - defined as difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or nonrestorative sleep - is often accompanied by symptoms that impair daily function such as fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and mood disturbance. Affecting up to 75% of the estimated 650,000 young adult cancer survivors in the United States, insomnia has a myriad of psychological and medical sequelae that compound late in long-term effects of cancer diagnosis and treatment, including increased risk of mortality. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) remains the gold standard for managing chronic insomnia. Nevertheless, widespread access to trained CBT-I providers, even in accredited sleep centers, remains elusive: trained CBT-I therapists remain limited in number and traditional in-person CBT-I therapy can be time and cost prohibitive for patients. Newer attempts to develop automated web-based CBT-I are more didactic than interactive and can involve counterproductive use of smartphone screens at bedtime that can be activating and suppress the melatonin needed for sleep. To address this critical gap in young adult cancer survivorship care, the investigators propose the More Sleep Hours Electronic Education Program (More SHEEP): a CBT-I solution using a screen-free, conversational, AI-driven smart speaker, custom lighting to plan, remind and support YACS about the changes required to overcome insomnia, and a smart router to report on bedtime screen use. They propose a multi-phase project involving active patient stakeholder input and an iterative design process that will achieve the following Specific Aims: Aim 1) maximize feasibility, usability, and acceptability of the interactive CBT-I prototype; Aim 2) finalize the prototype and conduct pilot field testing of the intervention for usability; Aim 3) conduct a randomized controlled trial to determine the impact of these integrated CBT-I components on insomnia symptoms among young adult cancer survivors compared to an attention control. Successful completion of these Aims will further their long-term goal of providing novel, affordable, available, scalable, evidence-driven solutions for moderate-severe chronic insomnia among young adult cancer survivors. Furthermore, this technology can eventually be translated to other patient populations living with cancer or other serious illnesses.
- Conditions
- Cancer
- Being tested
- Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, Sleep education and skills
- Keywords
- Young adult, Cancer survivor
- Medical subject headings
- Neoplasms
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomniaBehavioural
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is a structured, evidence-based treatment that helps people change thoughts and behaviors that interfere with sleep, using techniques like stimulus control, sleep restriction, cognitive restructuring, and relaxation training.
Sleep education and skillsBehavioural
Daily education about building better sleep habits, sleep hygiene, diet and exercise related to sleep
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Voice-activated virtual assistant-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia | Experimental | More Sleep Hours Electronic Education Program (More SHEEP) is a home-based, technology-enabled intervention that delivers cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) to young adult cancer survivors. The intervention uses a screen-free, voice-activated smart speaker integrated with adaptive smart lighting and internet use monitoring to provide CBT-I components including sleep education, sleep scheduling, behavioral recommendations, and daily sleep diary collection over a 6-week period. Receives: Behavioral: Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia |
| Voice-activated virtual assistant-delivered sleep management skills (not CBT-I) | Active comparator | The active comparator arm will include the same hardware as the More SHEEP system, a screen-free, voice-activated smart speaker integrated with adaptive smart lighting and internet use monitoring, but will not deliver CBT-I, it will only include skills education to improve sleep. Receives: Behavioral: Sleep education and skills |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Insomnia Severity Index
The Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) is a validated 7-item self-reported questionnaire assessing the severity of insomnia symptoms and related daytime impairment over the past two weeks. Items are scored on a 0-4 scale, producing a total score from 0 to 28, with higher scores indicating greater insomnia severity.
Measured: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Secondary outcomes (5)
Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General
The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General (FACT-G) is a validated self-reported questionnaire assessing health-related quality of life in patients with cancer. The 27-item instrument evaluates physical, social/family, emotional, and functional well-being, with higher scores indicating better quality of life.
Measured: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Cognitive Function
The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Cognitive Function (FACT-Cog) is a validated self-reported questionnaire assessing perceived cognitive function and cognitive-related quality of life in patients with cancer. The instrument evaluates domains including perceived cognitive impairments, perceived cognitive abilities, impact on quality of life, and comments from others, with higher scores indicating better perceived cognitive function.
Measured: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Satisfaction with Assigned Study Intervention (Client Satisfaction Questionnaire)
The Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) is a 10-item validated self-reported questionnaire assessing participant satisfaction with services received. The instrument evaluates perceived quality, usefulness, and overall satisfaction with care, with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction.
Measured: Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Recommendation of Assigned Intervention to Family/Friends
Likert scale of participant's self-report of how likely they are to recommend the assigned intervention to family/friends (1=not at all likely, 5=very likely)
Measured: Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
System Usability Scale
The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a validated self-reported questionnaire assessing perceived usability of a system or technology. The 10-item instrument yields a score from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating greater perceived usability.
Measured: Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted6 Jan 2026
- Study start4 Jan 2027 (estimated)
- Primary completion31 Dec 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion31 May 2028 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for CancerStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Supportive care
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Double blind
- Who is masked
- Participant, Care provider
- Enrolment
- 74 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Medstar Health Research Institute
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Cancer Institute (NCI)
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Hunter Groninger, MD, Principal investigator, Medstar Health Research Institute
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07318545
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- STUDY00009801
- Other IDs
- 2R44CA254637-02
- Status last verified
- May 2026
- First submitted
- 8 Sep 2025
- Last updated
- 22 Sep 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Undecided
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 22 Sep 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Intervention for Chronic Insufficient Sleep in Young Adult Cancer Patients and Survivors: Randomized Controlled Trial
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07318545
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- STUDY00009801
- Conditions
- Cancer
- Keywords
- Young adult, Cancer survivor
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Not yet recruiting
- Enrolment
- 74 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- Medstar Health Research InstituteUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Cancer Institute (NCI)
- Study start
- 4 Jan 2027 (estimated)
- Primary completion
- 31 Dec 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 31 May 2028 (estimated)
- First posted
- 6 Jan 2026 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
Young adult cancer survivors (YACS) commonly experience chronic insomnia due to many factors such as cancer related symptoms, effects of anti-cancer therapies, co-morbid mood disorders, and/or other psychosocial and economic stressors. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the gold standard for insomnia management but remains challenging to deliver to patients due to limited numbers of trained therapists, inconvenient scheduling availability, or prohibitive therapy costs. To address this critical gap in young adult cancer survivorship, the investigators propose to develop and test efficacy of the More Sleep Hours Electronic Education Program (More SHEEP), a novel system of smart speaker, smart lighting, and specialized Wi-Fi router that delivers AI-driven CBT-I to patients at home.
Detailed description
Insomnia - defined as difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or nonrestorative sleep - is often accompanied by symptoms that impair daily function such as fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and mood disturbance. Affecting up to 75% of the estimated 650,000 young adult cancer survivors in the United States, insomnia has a myriad of psychological and medical sequelae that compound late in long-term effects of cancer diagnosis and treatment, including increased risk of mortality. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) remains the gold standard for managing chronic insomnia. Nevertheless, widespread access to trained CBT-I providers, even in accredited sleep centers, remains elusive: trained CBT-I therapists remain limited in number and traditional in-person CBT-I therapy can be time and cost prohibitive for patients. Newer attempts to develop automated web-based CBT-I are more didactic than interactive and can involve counterproductive use of smartphone screens at bedtime that can be activating and suppress the melatonin needed for sleep. To address this critical gap in young adult cancer survivorship care, the investigators propose the More Sleep Hours Electronic Education Program (More SHEEP): a CBT-I solution using a screen-free, conversational, AI-driven smart speaker, custom lighting to plan, remind and support YACS about the changes required to overcome insomnia, and a smart router to report on bedtime screen use. They propose a multi-phase project involving active patient stakeholder input and an iterative design process that will achieve the following Specific Aims: Aim 1) maximize feasibility, usability, and acceptability of the interactive CBT-I prototype; Aim 2) finalize the prototype and conduct pilot field testing of the intervention for usability; Aim 3) conduct a randomized controlled trial to determine the impact of these integrated CBT-I components on insomnia symptoms among young adult cancer survivors compared to an attention control. Successful completion of these Aims will further their long-term goal of providing novel, affordable, available, scalable, evidence-driven solutions for moderate-severe chronic insomnia among young adult cancer survivors. Furthermore, this technology can eventually be translated to other patient populations living with cancer or other serious illnesses.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Supportive care
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Double blind (participant, care provider)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Voice-activated virtual assistant-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia | Experimental | Behavioral: Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomniaMore Sleep Hours Electronic Education Program (More SHEEP) is a home-based, technology-enabled intervention that delivers cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) to young adult cancer survivors. The intervention uses a screen-free, voice-activated smart speaker integrated with adaptive smart lighting and internet use monitoring to provide CBT-I components including sleep education, sleep scheduling, behavioral recommendations, and daily sleep diary collection over a 6-week period. |
| Voice-activated virtual assistant-delivered sleep management skills (not CBT-I) | Active comparator | Behavioral: Sleep education and skillsThe active comparator arm will include the same hardware as the More SHEEP system, a screen-free, voice-activated smart speaker integrated with adaptive smart lighting and internet use monitoring, but will not deliver CBT-I, it will only include skills education to improve sleep. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 to 42 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult
Key inclusion criteria (4 listed)
- Age 18-42 at time of enrollment
- history of cancer diagnosis (any type) diagnosed at/after age 15, received all treatment before age 40
- at least 6 months from date of cancer diagnosis
- history of chronic sleep disorder with Insomnia Severity Index >/= 8
Key exclusion criteria (5 listed)
- Refusal to try the study intervention
- diagnosed untreated obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, or restless leg syndrome
- narcolepsy, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and/or poorly controlled psychiatric diagnoses
- disease-related prognosis of less than 6 months or currently enrolled in hospice care
- planned travel out of the continental United States during the study period.
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomniaCognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is a structured, evidence-based treatment that helps people change thoughts and behaviors that interfere with sleep, using techniques like stimulus control, sleep restriction, cognitive restructuring, and relaxation training. | Behavioural | Voice-activated virtual assistant-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia |
| Sleep education and skillsDaily education about building better sleep habits, sleep hygiene, diet and exercise related to sleep | Behavioural | Voice-activated virtual assistant-delivered sleep management skills (not CBT-I) |
Primary outcome
Insomnia Severity Index
Time frame: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
The Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) is a validated 7-item self-reported questionnaire assessing the severity of insomnia symptoms and related daytime impairment over the past two weeks. Items are scored on a 0-4 scale, producing a total score from 0 to 28, with higher scores indicating greater insomnia severity.
5 secondary outcomes
Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General
Time frame: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Cognitive Function
Time frame: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Satisfaction with Assigned Study Intervention (Client Satisfaction Questionnaire)
Time frame: Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Recommendation of Assigned Intervention to Family/Friends
Time frame: Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
System Usability Scale
Time frame: Post Intervention (6 Weeks)
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 22 Sep 2026.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Undecided
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
Hunter Groninger, MD principal investigator
Medstar Health Research Institute
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and Sleep education and skills in people with Cancer, run by Medstar Health Research Institute.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 4 inclusion and 5 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: opening soon, as of the sponsor's last update on 22 Sep 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
Contact Santiago Bedoya-Moreno (202-877-6759, Santiago.BedoyaMoreno@medstar.net), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Insomnia Severity Index (time frame: Baseline (Day 0) and Post Intervention (6 Weeks)). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 22 Sep 2026.