Sleep promotion program for improving sleep behaviors among adolescents in selected schools: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Study objectives: The present study evaluated the efficacy of sleep promotion program (SPP) on sleep hygiene practices, sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and present functioning among adolescents. Methods: A two-arm, parallel, cluster randomized controlled trial was adopted. Participants were 660 adolescents aged 11–17(330 each in the intervention and control group). A socio-demographic questionnaire with sleep and activity items along with standardized questionnaires was used. Results: Significant improvements were observed in the experimental group after the intervention in the sleep hygiene practices, overall sleep quality and its sub-components like subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, and sleep efficiency at 2 weeks, and daytime sleepiness at 6 weeks. Other sleep quality components such as sleep duration, sleep disturbance, daytime dysfunction, and the present functioning compared did not statistically differ from the control group. Statistically significant positive correlations were observed between the target sleep variables. Sleep hygiene tends to deteriorate with higher grade level of adolescents, whereas sleep quality, sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness became worse with higher age and grade level. Conclusions: SPP holds a promise for improving healthy adolescents sleep behaviors. Interventions to improve emotional health could be explored in the future.

Keywords:

• Sleep
• RCT
• adolescents
• sleep practices
• sleep behaviors
• sleep problems

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the school Principals and the Headmasters for extending their full cooperation and thank the students who had participated in the study. We are grateful to Dr. Oommen P Mathew, PhD (Demography), Research Investigator, University of Kerala for his statistical support and thank Dr. C. Krishna Bhat, Professor, Department of Biomedical Research, K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore, India, and Ms. Mona Al-Ghaith, Lecturer, College of Health Sciences, UOB, for the grammar and English language support.