Wake up psychology! Postgraduate psychology students need more sleep and insomnia education

ABSTRACT

Objective

Poor sleep can significantly impact mental health. Despite this, sleep education is absent from the curriculum of many psychology training programs. The current study examined the amount of sleep education delivered within postgraduate psychology programs in Australia. It also developed a new survey tool to capture postgraduate psychology students’ experience of sleep education.

Method

Two cross-sectional sleep education surveys were emailed to postgraduate psychology programs across Australia via the Heads of Department and Schools of Psychology Association. The first survey explored sleep education from postgraduate psychology program coordinators’ perspectives (n = 35; survey response rate = 73%), while the second custom-designed survey examined postgraduate psychology students’ perspectives (n = 152).

Results

Program coordinators reported a median of 2.00 hours (range 0-9) of didactic sleep education delivered within postgraduate psychology programs. Postgraduate students, however, reported receiving a median of only 1.00 hour (range 0-40) of sleep education, with 47% of students reporting no sleep education. Most students acknowledged already working with clients experiencing sleep disturbances (68%), yet they disclosed low confidence and self-efficacy to manage sleep disturbances in psychology practice. Despite delivering minimal sleep education, thematic analysis indicated that program coordinators viewed sleep education as an important topic for trainee psychologists. Program coordinators preferred sleep education to supplement the postgraduate curriculum, preferably online (63%), whereas students chose clinical supervision (61%).

Conclusions

Postgraduate psychology training programs deliver minimal sleep education to trainee psychologists in Australia. Enhanced integration of sleep education within the postgraduate psychology curriculum is required to improve mental health outcomes.

Key Points

What is already known about this topic:

• (1) Sleep disturbances commonly co-occur with mental health conditions, often with a bidirectional relationship.

• (2) Trainee clinical psychologists in the US receive limited sleep education, which may impact their ability to manage the sleep disturbances in clinical practice.

• (3) There are currently no Australian Psychology Accreditation Council training requirements in sleep and sleep disorders for postgraduate psychology programs, despite the bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health.

What this topic adds:

• (1) This is the first study to examine sleep education within postgraduate psychology programs in Australia.

• (2) We show that (1) a median of only two hours of didactic sleep education is delivered within postgraduate psychology programs, (2) almost half (47%) of postgraduate students received no sleep education during their training, (3) sleep issues were a common presenting complaint for postgraduate students to address on placement, and (4) overall, graduate students reported low levels of confidence and self-efficacy to manage sleep disturbances in clinical practice.

• (3) Postgraduate psychology students in Australia need more sleep education to manage the sleep disturbances that commonly co-occur with mental health conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Education and training
• clinical psychology
• sleep
• sleep disorders
• curriculum

Acknowledgments

First, thank you to the Heads of Departments and Schools of Psychology Association (HoDSPA) for assistance with study recruitment, and to study participants who completed the survey, both postgraduate program coordinators and students. Second, thank you to the psychologists and researchers who assisted with the development and testing of our GradPsyKAPS questionnaire. Lastly, a big thank you to those sleep researchers who provided their research to assist with questionnaire development and permission to use some items from existing sleep surveys. Hailey Meaklim is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship administered through Monash University (previously through RMIT University). RMIT University School of Graduate Research provided funding for participant gift vouchers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship; RMIT University [School of Graduate Research].