Recruiting

Sleep Patterns

Sponsor:

Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati

Code:

NCT07684417

Conditions

ADHD

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 13 - 17

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Aligned sleep extension

Misaligned sleep extension

Study Details

Brief summary:

Many adolescents go to bed late and wake up early for school. Science is only beginning to understand how sleep schedules can affect them. The investigators are interested in whether changing adolescents' sleep patterns affects their functioning, attention, and how they feel. The investigators are especially interested in the effects of changing both how much sleep adolescents get and when that sleep happens.

This study focuses on healthy 13-17-year-olds with ADHD. This study asks adolescents to systematically change their sleeping habits across a 3 week span. The first week, they follow a sleep schedule that fits reasonably well with the schedule they keep when they do not have to wake up early for any specific obligation (e.g., for school). The second week, they spend several nights in a "short sleep" condition, during which they get 6.5 hours in bed per night. The final week, they enter a sleep condition that allows for healthy sleep duration, but with a timing that is randomly assigned to either fit well with their preferred schedule or fit poorly with that schedule. During each week, they and their parents complete measures of their attention and other factors. At the end of each week, they attend an evening session to measure their internal body clock ("circadian phase"), as well as measures of attention and other thinking skills. The goal is to understand whether the benefits of healthy sleep duration depend on the timing of when that sleep occurs.

Conditions

ADHD

Study ID

NCT07684417

Start date

Jul 10, 2026

Status verified date

Jun, 2026

Completion date

Aug, 2030

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Aug, 2030

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 13 - 17

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Ages 13-17 years at time of informed consent/assent
  • Based on semi-structured clinical interview, participants must meet full DSM-5 criteria for ADHD inattentive or ADHD combined presentation.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Non-traditional school setting (morning-afternoon Monday-Friday).
  • Exclusionary diagnoses. We will exclude adolescents with known intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, psychosis, bipolar disorder, or neurologic conditions (e.g., epilepsy), per caregiver-report.
  • Exclusionary sleep disorders. We will exclude adolescents with symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea or periodic limb movement disorder based on published cutoffs on a validated questionnaire.
  • High caffeine intake. To promote adherence to directives not to consume caffeine the day of office visits without withdrawal effects, adolescents with daily intake of >1 coffee or "energy drink" or >2 caffeinated sodas per day based on caregiver- and adolescent-report will be excluded.

  • Unwillingness or inability to take part in study procedures (e.g., visits, prescribed sleep conditions).
  • Medication use or unwillingness to discontinue melatonin and/or stimulant medications during the 3-week study protocol.
  • Refusal to refrain from automobile driving during the sleep restriction condition.
  • "Intermediate" Chronotypes (neither morning larks nor night owls) based on habitual sleep timing on nights when adolescent has no morning obligations such as school or work.

Study Design

Enrollment

50 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Factorial

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Aligned Sleep Extension

One of two variants on the timing of period of when there is an opportunity to get healthy/recommended sleep duration. Aligned sleep extension allows 9.5 hours/night in bed in a manner that broadly fits with an adolescent's chronotype (e.g., early-to-bed and early-to-rise schedule for a morning lark).

experimental: Misaligned Sleep Extension

One of two variants on the timing of period of when there is an opportunity to get healthy/recommended sleep duration. Aligned sleep extension allows 9.5 hours/night in bed in a manner that is broadly a poor fit with an adolescent's chronotype (e.g., early-to-bed and early-to-rise schedule for a night owl).

Interventions

Aligned sleep extension

Timing of extended sleep condition is randomly assigned to fit with participant's chronotype

Misaligned sleep extension

Timing of extended sleep condition is randomly assigned to fit poorly with participant's chronotype

Primary outcome measure

  • Caregiver- and Adolescent-Reported Symptoms of Inattention [ Time Frame: Daily throughout each participant's involvement in the study, up to 3 weeks ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Dean Beebe, Ph.D

513-636-3489dean.beebe@cchmc.org

Locations

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Recruiting

Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, 45229

Contacts

Dean Beebe, Ph.D.

513-636-3489dean.beebe@cchmc.org

More Information

Sponsor

Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati

Last update posted

Aug 17, 2026

Last verified

Jun, 2026

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati on 2026-08-17.