Rébecca Robillard

University of Ottawa · Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR)

Aim To refine the Rushton Moral Resilience Scale (RMRS) by creating a more concise scale, improving the reliability, particularly of the personal integrity subscale and providing further evidence of validity. Background Healthcare workers are exposed to moral adversity in practice. When unable to preserve/restore their integrity, moral suffering e...

Objective/background: Though sleep problems (apnea, insomnia) and related daytime symptoms (fatigue, anxiety, depression) have been associated with vestibular problems (falls, dizziness), it is not well known which particular sleep features relate to vestibular problems. We thus assessed symptoms of vestibular problems in patients visiting a sleep...

Rationale/objectives Despite plausible pathophysiological mechanisms, more research is needed to confirm the relationship between obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and the risk of COVID-19 infection or COVID-19-related serious complications. Methods We conducted a retrospective population-based cohort study using provincial health administrative data...

Purpose: Delusional ideation, defined as false beliefs and altered thinking, has long been attributed to anomalous/bizarre perceptual experiences and reasoning deficits. Recent studies, however, have challenged this view, suggesting instead that delusional ideation may have more of a social component to its phenomenology and underlying mechanisms....

Objective To estimate health care and productivity costs associated with insomnia symptoms in Canadian adults. Methods Three pieces of information were needed to calculate estimates based on a prevalence-based approach: (1) the pooled relative risk estimates of health outcomes consistently associated with insomnia symptoms obtained from recent met...

Background: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management of ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) remains unknown. Objectives: To compare observed and expected (projected based on previous years) trends in all-cause mortality and healthcare use for ACSCs in the first year of the pandemic (March 2020 to March 2021). Design, setti...

Background Suicide is the second leading cause of death in adolescents. Sleep disturbances could alter inhibitory processes and contribute to dangerous behaviors in this critical developmental period. Adolescents in suicidal crisis have been shown to have lighter sleep compared to healthy controls. Additionally, suicidal adolescents have lower neur...

Purpose To better understand: (i) a positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy use during the pandemic, (ii) how PAP use may relate to sleep, health, and COVID-19-related outcomes, and (iii) factors associated with PAP use during the pandemic. Methods This study is based on data collected between Apr 2020 and Jan 2021 as part of an online cross-sectio...

Objective: Here, we investigated the behavioral, cognitive, and electrophysiological impact of mild, acute sleep loss via simultaneously recorded behavioral and electrophysiological measures of vigilance during a "real-world", simulated driving task. Methods: Participants (N=34) visited the lab for two testing days where their brain activity and...

Background: The present study investigated whether sleep deprivation affects attention capture in young and older adults using event-related potentials (ERPs). Methods: Eleven young adults (20-30 y) and nine older adults (60-70 y) were tested following both normal sleep (NS) and total sleep deprivation (TSD). ERPs were recorded during an auditor...

Abstract Background Global health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, confront healthcare workers (HCW) with increased exposure to potentially morally distressing events. The pandemic has provided an opportunity to explore the links between moral distress, moral resilience, and emergence of mental health symptoms in HCWs. Methods A total of 962...

Several treatments for sleep and circadian disorders involve behavioral changes that can be difficult to implement and often challenge treatment adherence. Wearables\nearables create exciting new opportunities to support adherence monitoring by tracking behavioral, physiological and environmental measures along the course of treatment. Technologica...

Objectives. Suicide is the second leading cause of adolescent deaths and may be linked to difficulties with inhibitory and emotional processing. This study assessed the neural correlates of cognitive inhibition during emotional processing in adolescents hospitalized for a suicidal crisis. Methods. Event-related potentials were recorded during an em...

Background An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally si...

Objectives: This study sought to examine fluctuations in admissions to a child and adolescent inpatient psychiatry unit in relation to school breaks, school starts, as well as time change transitions in and out of Daylight-Saving Time (DST). Methods: Five years (2012-2017) of youth inpatient admissions to a pediatric hospital in Ontario were ret...

During the early days of the pandemic and in the context of a seemingly unknown global threat, several potential major sleep disruptors were identified by sleep researchers and practitioners across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic combined several features that, individually, had been shown to negatively affect sleep health in the general populatio...

Purpose: To better understand: i) a positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy use during the pandemic, ii) how PAP use may relate to sleep, health, and COVID-19-related outcomes, and iii) factors associated with PAP use during the pandemic. Methods: This study is based on data collected between Apr 2020 and Jan 2021 as part of the online cross-section...

Sleep fragmentation and reductions in sleep spindles have been observed in individuals with depression. Sleep spindles are known to play a protective role for sleep, and there are indications that melatonin agents can enhance spindles in healthy people. Whether agomelatine, a melatonin agonist indicated for the treatment of depression, may increase...

Purpose: To better understand: i) a positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy use during the pandemic, ii) how PAP use may relate to sleep, health, and COVID-19-related outcomes, and iii) factors associated with PAP use during the pandemic. Methods: This study is based on data collected between Apr 2020 and Jan 2021 as part of the online cross-section...

Purpose: To better understand: i) a positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy use during the pandemic, ii) how PAP use may relate to sleep, health, and COVID-19-related outcomes, and iii) factors associated with PAP use during the pandemic. Methods: This study is based on data collected between Apr 2020 and Jan 2021 as part of the online cross-section...

Background: An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally s...

Sleep problems are highly co-morbid with psychiatric disorders and are part of the complex and multiple factors contributing to symptoms and functional disability. The current study aimed to determine how sleep problems in the period preceding psychiatric admission relate to profiles of mental health needs in adolescent inpatients. This retrospecti...

Background Light therapy yields inconsistent results in people with non-seasonal depression, which may in part be due to heterogeneous responses and the temporal dynamics of changes in sleep, daytime functioning and mood. This study assessed the timeline of the antidepressant effects of light therapy and sleep rescheduling relative to changes in sl...

Background: Individuals with chronic conditions require ongoing disease management to reduce risks of adverse health outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care for non-COVID-19 cases was affected due to the reallocation of resources towards urgent care for COVID-19 patients, resulting in inadequate ongoing care for chronic conditions. Me...

Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused global disruptions with serious psychological impacts. This study investigated the emergence of new psychiatric symptoms and the worsening of pre-existing mental disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic, identified factors associated with psychological worsening, and assessed chan...

Summary This study aimed to evaluate changes in sleep during the COVID‐19 outbreak, and used data‐driven approaches to identify distinct profiles of changes in sleep‐related behaviours. Demographic, behavioural and psychological factors associated with sleep changes were also investigated. An online population survey assessing sleep and mental heal...

Introduction The negative impacts of COVID-19 have rippled through every facet of society. Understanding the multidimensional impacts of this pandemic is crucial to identify the most critical needs and to inform targeted interventions. This population survey study aimed to investigate the acute phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in terms of perceived t...

Study objectives: The effects of serotonergic agents on respiration neuromodulation may vary according to differences in the serotonin system, such as those linked to depression. This study investigated how sleep-related respiratory disturbances relate to depression and the use of medications commonly prescribed for depression. Methods: Retrospe...

Background Understanding the multifaceted impacts of the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) outbreak as it unfolds is crucial to identify the most critical needs and to inform targeted interventions. Methods This population survey study presents cohort characteristics and baseline observations linked to the acute-mid phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in terms...

Background: Primary care physicians and child and adolescent psychiatrists often treat sleep disturbances in children and adolescents with mood disorders using medications off-label, in the absence of clear evidence for efficacy, tolerability and short or long-term safety. This study is the first to report Canadian data about prescribing preferenc...

Background: Understanding the multifaceted impacts of the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) outbreak as it unfolds is crucial to identify the most critical needs and to inform targeted interventions. Methods: This population survey study presents cohort characteristics and baseline observations linked to the acute-mid phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in te...

Objective: We assessed mean heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) across wake, rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and across varying levels of NREM sleep depth in individuals with depression and sleep complaints. Methods: Retrospective polysomnographic data were obtained for 25 individuals diagnosed with...

The ‘International Biomarkers Workshop on Wearables in Sleep and Circadian Science’ was held at the 2018 SLEEP Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. The workshop brought together experts in consumer sleep technologies and medical devices, sleep and circadian physiology, clinical translational research, and clinical practice. The g...

Background: Abnormalities in heart rate during sleep linked to impaired neuro-cardiac modulation may provide new information about physiological sleep signatures of depression. This study assessed the validity of an algorithm using patterns of heart rate changes during sleep to discriminate between individuals with depression and healthy controls....

Introduction Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep-related breathing disorder with negative consequences on daytime functioning, including fatigue, irritability, and poorer memory. OSA is highly prevalent among individuals diagnosed with severe mental illnesses (SMI), likely due to an accumulation of risk factors (e.g., antipsychotics, obesity,...

Objective/background: Rates of suicide attempts in Canadian youths are concerning. Adolescence is a sensitive period for the emergence of both sleep and mood problems, two major risk factors for suicidality. This naturalistic study aimed to define the sleep profile of adolescents under the combined influence of suicidality, depression and pharmaco...

Exogenous melatonin can be used to treat sleep disturbance in adults, children, and adolescents. While its short-term use is considered safe, there are some concerns that long-term use might delay children's sexual maturation, possibly by disrupting the decline in nocturnal melatonin levels that occur at the onset of puberty. This narrative review...

Background: Agomelatine is a melatonin agonist and 5HT antagonist developed for the treatment of major depressive disorder which also has some effects on the circadian system. Since circadian dysfunctions are thought to play a role in the pathophysiology of depression, some of the mechanism of action of this drug may relate to improvements in circa...

Objective/background: A considerable subgroup of adolescents does not respond to standard antidepressant treatments. There are some indications that sleep disordered breathing may contribute to refractory depression in adults, but little is known about how it may relate to the course of depressive disorders in adolescents. Focussing on a group of...

Abnormalities in circadian rhythms have been reported in people with mood disorders, but these abnormalities are marked by considerable inter-individual variability. This study aimed to identify pathophysiological subgroups on the basis of circadian markers and evaluate how these subgroups relate to psychiatric profiles. Thirty-five young adults (1...

Introduction Comorbidity rates between anxiety disorders and depression are high. In case-control studies, atypical sleep features have been attributed to anxiety disorders or depression, but little is known about the diagnostic specificity of these features and the sleep signature of anxious-depressive comorbidity. Depression and anxiety have seve...

Introduction Recently, it has been reported that the switch back from Daylight Saving (DST) to Standard Time (ST) in the fall was associated with significant increases in admissions for major depression in psychiatric units in Copenhagen (Hansen et al. 2017). The present study attempted to determine if this phenomenon applies to adolescent admissio...

Introduction Sleep abnormalities are highly prevalent among individuals with depression and these abnormalities are thought to contribute to the onset and maintenance of mood disorders. There are some indications that some people with sleep or mood problems self-medicate with cannabis in attempt to improve their sleep. While further work is require...

Introduction Convincing evidence emphasizes cardiac arrhythmias and sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) as independent risk factors for stroke and cardiovascular mortality. Sleep research focused on acute cardiac events following respiratory disturbances (ACERD) may provide deeper insights into the link between nocturnal cardiovascular deterioration a...

Introduction Serotonergic neurotransmission via the hypoglossal nerve plays an important role in the control of upper airway muscle tone and pharyngeal collapsibility during sleep. A limited number of studies have reported reductions in the apnea-hypopnea index following antidepressant intake in people with obstructive sleep apnea. Conversely, it h...

Impaired executive functions, modulated by the frontal lobes, have been suggested to be associated with suicidal behavior. The present study examines one of these executive functions, attentional control, maintaining attention to the task-at-hand. A group of inpatient adolescents with acute suicidal behavior and healthy controls were studied using...

Affective disorders in young people have been associated with disruptions in circadian rhythms, including abnormalities in secretion of the pineal hormone melatonin. Previous research reports relationships between pineal gland volumes, melatonin secretion, and sleep-wake cycles, but the relationship between these factors has not been explored in af...

Purpose of review Over time, the sleep disturbances experienced by people with bipolar disorder (BD) can lead to a progressive accumulation of sleep debt with widespread adverse consequences on mental and physical health. This review looks at recent studies that have examined bipolar disorder in relation to sleep and cardiovascular dysfunctions. R...

While disturbances of the sleep-wake cycle are common in people with affective disorders, the characteristics of these disturbances differ greatly between individuals. This heterogeneity is likely to reflect multiple underlying pathophysiologies, with different perturbations in circadian systems contributing to the variation in sleep-wake cycle dis...

Myo-inositol, a second messenger glucose isomer and glial marker, is potentiated by melatonin. In addition to common abnormalities in melatonin regulation, depressive disorders have been associated with reduced myo-inositol in frontal structures. This study examined associations between myo-inositol in the anterior cingulate cortex and the timing o...

Introduction Sleep disturbances may play an important role in the pathophysiology of both depression and cardiovascular dysfunctions. Previous observations suggested atypical patterns of heart rate changes in people with depression, often marked by elevated and unstable heart rate during sleep. This study assessed the validity of novel biomarkers b...

Introduction Depression is often associated with disrupted sleep. Sleep onset difficulties and sleep quality have been suspected to play an important role in the pathogenesis of depression. Phototherapy has the potential to restore sleep dysfunctions, which in turn may alleviate mood. This study examined the relationship between changes in sleep an...

Introduction Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is frequently associated with depression in adults. SDB causes sleep fragmentation and hypoxemia, and alters serotonergic transmission, all of which may link SDB to depression. Despite improvement in depression with treatment of SDB, SDB is widely underdiagnosed. Since the adolescent brain is less devel...

Introduction Research report robust change in functional connectivity (FC) during waking resting state after sleep loss. Studies indicate that older participants show smaller or similar effects to acute sleep loss on vigilance and cognition as compared to the young. However, age-related effects of sleep loss on FC have not been reported. The presen...

Background: Patients with affective disorders of different ages have been found to present weight changes and different circadian activity patterns. This study assessed the effects of age, Body Mass Index (BMI) and depression severity on the activity-rest cycle in persons with affective disorders using a novel multifactorial 24-h analysis method....

This study investigated the relative contribution of psychiatric symptoms and psychotropic medications on the sleep-wake cycle. Actigraphy and clinical assessments (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale) were conducted in 146 youths with anxiety, depression or bipolar disorders. Independently of medications, mania symptoms were predictive of lower circadi...