Sleepio

Sleepio
Founder(s) Colin Espie, Peter Hames
Industry Healthcare
Website Sleepio.com
Launched 2012

Sleepio is a digital sleep-improvement program featuring cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques developed by sleep scientist Professor Colin Espie and ex-insomnia sufferer Peter Hames.

Sleepio was tested in a randomized placebo-group clinical trial in 2012, with results published in the peer-reviewed journal SLEEP.[1] In a commentary on this research published by The Lancet, Sleepio was described as “a proven intervention for sleep disorders using the internet”.[2] The journal Nature described Sleepio as “about as effective as CBT delivered in person”.[3]

History

Sleepio is the first program from Big Health, the behavioral medicine company co-founded by Professor Colin Espie and Peter Hames.[4] Sleepio’s advisors include Professor Sir Neil Douglas, Esther Dyson and Martha Lane Fox.

In March 2013 Sleepio was one of the launch apps in the NHS-approved Healthy Apps Library.[5]

Sleepio was one of ten partners worldwide to launch on Jawbone’s UP self-tracking platform in April 2013,[6] allowing import of sleep data collected by the UP activity tracker into Sleepio. Integrated support is also available to users of the BodyMedia FIT band.[7]

Awards

In March 2013, Sleepio was a finalist in the Digital Innovation category at the NHS Innovation EXPO.[8]

In October 2013, Sleepio was named by The Observer as one of the stars of London’s Tech City.[9]

In November 2013, Sleepio was the winning "Healthcare IT Product Innovation" as selected by a UK healthcare industry website, E-Health Insider.[10] The start-up was also a semi-finalist in the BIG Awards organised by Cisco Systems, Inc. in 2013.[11]

In April 2014, Sleepio won the Bupa Startup competition at Wired Health.[12]

In June 2014, the company behind the Sleepio program, Big Health, was chosen as the Best Health Startup at The Europas Awards, the annual event honoring the best tech startups in Europe.[13]

How it works

The Sleepio program is delivered via the web and via mobile devices.[14] A virtual sleep expert, The Prof, guides the user through six interactive weekly sessions.[15] These sessions are automatically personalized to each user based on data collected from wearable devices, entered during an initial screening questionnaire and a daily sleep diary.[1] A range of online tools, a library of articles, and an online community are incorporated into the program.[16]

Clinical trial

The Sleepio program has been tested in the world’s first placebo-controlled trial of a digital sleep intervention, the results of which were published in 2012 in the peer-reviewed journal SLEEP.[1]

A total of 164 participants were randomly allocated to one of three groups: one group receiving CBT (Sleepio), one group receiving a placebo treatment (Imagery Relief Therapy, or IRT) and a control group receiving no treatment at all (the “wait list” group).[1]

Participants in the CBT and in the placebo group would log into the website every day for the course of the treatment, to log their sleep information and to engage with the weekly therapy sessions.[1] Throughout and post-treatment, the CBT group could also access the online Sleepio community.[1] It has been proposed that the inclusion of peer support could have contributed to significantly better results for the CBT group in the trial.[2]

The improvements from baseline were significantly better in the CBT group relative to the IRT and control groups and the results showed that on average, Sleepio helped insomnia sufferers participating in the trial fall asleep 54% faster, spend 62% less time awake at night, and feel better during the day.[1]

Tools used to analyze changes in sleep across all three groups were Sleep Efficiency scores and self-reported Sleep Quality.[1] The Sleep Efficiency score represents the proportion of time in bed that is spent sleeping. The Sleep Efficiency trial results were as shown in the table below:[1]

Group Baseline Sleep Efficiency Sleep Efficiency post-treatment Total increase in Sleep Efficiency during treatment Sleep Efficiency 8 weeks post-treatment
Group receiving CBT 63.2% 82.7% 19.5% 82.8%
Group receiving placebo (IRT) 65.1% 70.8% 5.70% 72.4%
Control group receiving no treatment 55.6% 62.0% 6.37% 64.90%

Daytime performance of the trial participants was tracked using a self-reported sleep quality measure and questionnaires. Changes were observed in daytime performance as well (including concentration, productivity, ability to stay awake) and daytime social functioning (mood, energy, relationships with other people).[1]

Positive changes to daytime performance were observed in all three groups, with noticeably bigger increases among the group receiving CBT.[1]

Overall, three-quarters of the CBT group achieved Sleep Efficiency of at least 80% post-treatment and these results were maintained at the eight-week follow-up.[1]

The results of the CBT group show that Sleepio is comparable in effectiveness to face-to-face delivered cognitive behavioral therapy.[2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Colin A. Espie, Simon D. Kyle, Chris Williams, Jason C. Ong, Neil J. Douglas, Peter Hames, June S. L. Brown, “A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of online cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic insomnia disorder delivered via an automated media-rich web application”, Sleep, June 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Mike Moore, “Looking for a good night’s sleep”, The Lancet, July 2012.
  3. ↑ Crow, J. M., “Insomnia: Chasing the dream”, Nature, May 2013.
  4. ↑ Ana Lazowski, “Sleepio navigates what’s keeping you up at night”, CBC News, March 2014.
  5. ↑ Jessica Hodgson, “U.K. Health Service Takes Closer Look at Apps’ Potential”, The Wall Street Journal, May 2013.
  6. ↑ Dante D’Orazio, “Jawbone launches an ecosystem for Up, lets other apps tap into your fitness data”, The Verge, April 2013.
  7. ↑ "BodyMedia Teams with Sleepio & A.R.O. to Support Sleep & Life Improvements" (Press release). 2013-05-28. Retrieved 2014-03-20.
  8. ↑ Stephen Adams, “Inside the healthcare ‘Dragons’ Den’”, The Telegraph, March 2013.
  9. ↑ “Meet the stars of Tech City”, The Guardian, October 2013.
  10. ↑ “Mersey Burns App wins EHI Awards 2013”, EHI Mobile, October 2013.
  11. ↑ Caroline Baldwin, “Cisco announces BIG Awards startup semi-finalists”, Computer Weekly, August 2013.
  12. ↑ Liat Clark, "Insomnia app Sleepio wins startup competition at Wired Health", Wired, May 2014.
  13. ↑ "The Europas Awards - The Winners" (Press release). 2014-06-10. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  14. ↑ Espie, C. A., Hames P., McKinstry, B., “Use of digital (internet and mobile) media delivery of cognitive-behavioral insomnia therapy, “Sleep Medicine Clinics”, September 2013.
  15. ↑ Lynne Lamberg, “The Virtual Doctor Will See you Now”, Psychiatric News, August 17, 2012.
  16. ↑ Dan Buckland, Review of Sleepio Web-based Therapy for Insomnia, and a Q&A with Co-Founder Prof. Colin Espie, Medgadget, February 2013.
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