Personalized Integrated Chronotherapy for Perinatal Depression
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT04364646. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Perinatal depression and anxiety are common, serious, and frequently overlapping disorders that increase morbidity and mortality in new mothers (including suicide) and result in poor infant/child outcomes. Current therapies often fail to produce recovery or are poorly tolerated, and many pregnant women seek non-pharmacologic therapy or forgo treatment when non-pharmacologic options are not available. Expectant and new mothers who experience circadian rhythm dysregulation are at increased risk for perinatal depression. This Confirmatory Efficacy Clinical Trial of Non-Pharmacological Interventions for Mental Disorders R01 seeks to test whether a Personalized Integrated Chronotherapy (PIC) intervention can improve treatment outcomes for pregnant patients seeking outpatient treatment for depression, with or without anxiety. PIC is a multicomponent treatment consisting of bright light therapy, sleep phase advance, and sleep stabilization/restriction that targets the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) constructs of circadian rhythms and sleep-wake behavior. To increase sample size and diversity and accelerate recruitment, this study will be performed at 4 sites that differ in clinical structure and that have piloted the PIC intervention. The study will enroll expectant mothers diagnosed with major depressive disorder during 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Participants will be randomized to either: (a) usual care (UC, n = 110) or (b) PIC+UC (n = 110). PIC+UC will have pregnancy and postpartum components and will be administered via a personalized approach tailored to optimize the intervention based on each patient's individual circadian and sleep timing. After a baseline assessment, PIC will be prescribed during 5 dedicated clinical visits: three during 3rd trimester of pregnancy and 2 in the postpartum period. UC will consist of medication and/or psychotherapy. UC will be quantified in both groups to evaluate differences between the PIC+UC and UC groups. Mood will be measured in both groups by blinded clinician interview and patient self-report. The safety profile of the PIC intervention will be assessed by evaluation of side effects/adverse events. Importantly, the study will also examine the target mechanisms by which PIC is hypothesized to work and test the mediation effects of the circadian targets on improvement in mood symptoms. Participants will wear wrist actigraphy/light monitors continuously during weeks 28-40 of pregnancy and postpartum weeks 2-6 to assess light exposure and to estimate sleep timing and duration. Circadian phase (measured with salivary dim light melatonin onset) will be measured at baseline during pregnancy (\~30 weeks' gestation), at 36 weeks' gestation, and at postpartum week 6. Exploratory aims will examine associations between infant sleep behavior and maternal circadian rhythms and factors relevant to future dissemination of PIC. If this intervention is effective, perinatal PIC could change clinical practice and have major public health impact due to the high prevalence of perinatal depression and anxiety, the negative effects of mood disorders on mothers and their children, and the need to provide effective, novel, non-pharmacologic therapies for women with perinatal mood disorders.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT04364646
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 120 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 45 Years
- Sex
- Female
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Nov 1, 2020
- Primary completion
- Oct 21, 2024
- Completion
- Jun 29, 2025
- Last update posted
- Dec 8, 2025
2020 – 2025
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 3
- U.S. states
- 3
- U.S. cities
- 3
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feinstein Institute For Medical Research | Glen Oaks | New York | 11004 | — |
| University of North Carolina | Chapel Hill | North Carolina | 27599 | — |
| Rhode Island Hospital | Providence | Rhode Island | 02903 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT04364646, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Dec 8, 2025 · Synced Sep 4, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT04364646 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.