Research Round-up

Pain relief for sickle cell patients

Nursing Collegiate Professor Ardith Doorenbos, PhD, RN, FAAN, will lead a $7.1 million, five-year national study to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture and guided relaxation for people with chronic pain from sickle cell disease, or SCD.

The National Institutes of Health grant is part of its Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL, aimed at improving prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction.

"The opioid crisis in the U.S. is very severe, and some states have had more deaths from opioid overdoses than from car accidents,” Doorenbos says. “We're trying to do what we can to reduce opioid use in the sickle cell disease population who have high pain levels and opioid use.”

Sickle cell disease affects as many as 100,000 people in the U.S., and at least 20 million worldwide. Pain, both acute and chronic, is a constant companion to those living with SCD, and is so severe that it requires opioids to attempt to keep it at tolerable levels.

“The opioid crisis in the U.S. is very severe, and some states have had more deaths from opioid overdoses than from car accidents.”

For the study, 360 SCD patients will receive acupuncture twice a week for five weeks. UIC Nursing associate professor Judith Schlaeger, PhD, MS ’88, BSN ’80, FAAN, a practicing licensed acupuncturist, developed the SCD treatment plan. Patients will also be asked to use guided relaxation techniques at least once a day. Both acupuncture and guided meditation were proven effective in pilot studies on SCD pain management.

The researchers will be working with patients with sickle cell disease in the fall of 2021, pending additional approvals from the UIC Institutional Review Board.

Quinn named Minnich Professor

Clinical professor Laurie Quinn, PhD ’96, RN, FAAN, FAHA, CDE, was named the Katherine M. Minnich Endowed Professor and director of the Center for Sleep and Health Research at the College of Nursing.

“Dr. Quinn’s accomplishments are stellar,” says Dean Terri Weaver. “She is a dedicated, talented teacher and innovative researcher who received universal endorsement for this appointment.”

Over the past 20 years, Quinn has maintained a research program that focuses on improving the health of people with diabetes—looking at factors such as sleep–and reducing the burden of diabetes complications.

Quinn, the inaugural Dr. Mi Ja Kim Endowed Faculty Research Award recipient, is working with engineers at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago to develop an artificial pancreas that would revolutionize the way people with diabetes control their disease.

Laurie Quinn, left, sets up her lab with research assistants.

Dunn, in red, is flanked by her research team: (L-R)

Madison (Buursma)

Goodyke, PhD student and research assistant, Melissa Gutierrez-Kapheim, project director, and Anna Luong, PhD student and research assistant

Studying COVID At least three studies at UIC Nursing examine the novel coronavirus’ affect on different aspects of health.

HEALTH, HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL DISTANCING

Susan Dunn, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, received an NIH supplement to expand her Heart Up! study, which focuses on how to improve care for heart disease patients struggling with hopelessness. She’ll be studying how the intervention—aimed at motivating patients to be more physically active—might limit the negative affect of shelter-in-place and social distancing measures put in place due to COVID-19.

A DISPROPORTIONATE TOLL

UIC College of Nursing associate professor Wendy Bostwick, PhD, MPH, co-authored a paper in the journal Health Education and Behavior that maps COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on the south and west sides of Chicago, which are predominantly African American communities. Bostwick and lead author Sage J. Kim, an associate professor in the UIC School of Public Health, wrote that one of the reasons for the disparities could be the fact that African American communities were disproportionately affected by multiple chronic diseases before the pandemic. “This confirms and further demonstrates a whole host of inequities, and how those inequities are very geographically concentrated in Chicago,” Bostwick said in an interview.

BIRTH IN THE TIME OF COVID

Assistant professor Kylea Liese, PhD, CNM, teamed up with associate professors Julienne Rutherford, PhD, and Mary Dawn Koenig, PhD, RN, CNM, to create the COVID-19 Pregnancy and Postpartum Experiences (COPE) Study, a survey about how isolation, stress and healthcare changes related to the coronavirus affect pregnancy and the postpartum period.

The researchers say they hope the survey will paint a picture of life for pregnant people during a pandemic and be the first step toward building a cohort study looking at long-term consequences of babies developing in the

midst of COVID-19.

Chicago's COVID-19 Disparities

Share of population Share of cases Share of deaths

46% 56%

33%

30%

20%

16%

White African American

Source: COVID-19 data from the Chicago Department of Public Health up to April 20

Sleeping better with diabetes

Getting more sleep and establishing a regular sleep schedule is a common recommendation for maintaining and improving health, including for people with Type 1 diabetes. Short sleep patterns may affect how the body uses insulin, and irregular sleep schedules can affect glucose through changes in one’s circadian rhythm or biological clock.

But how best to improve sleep? And, how can you get quality sleep when you’re trying to manage your blood sugar along with life’s other demands?

UIC Nursing associate professor Pamela Martyn- Nemeth has received a $3 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to help answer those questions. “Many people with Type 1 diabetes consistently report not having normal sleep or a good night’s rest,” Martyn-Nemeth says. “They are afraid they’re going to run low or high blood glucose levels and many set alarms to check blood sugar.

“Many people with Type 1 diabetes report not having normal sleep or a good night’s rest, sometimes for 10 years,” Martyn-Nemeth said.

Martyn-Nemeth and her colleagues will conduct a 12-week, randomized clinical trial in 120 adults with diabetes. Participants will be tested before the study using a research-grade sleep watch and continuous glucose monitor that will measure sleep and glucose levels. One group will receive information about healthy sleep habits and phone counseling sessions, while the other group will receive general healthy living information. Both groups will be retested at two other times during the study, then 24 weeks after the study’s end to measure sustainability.

“Our goal is to be able to develop strategies to improve sleep [that can be] integrated into clinical care,” Martyn-Nemeth said.