Promoting Healthy Sleep in Adolescents: a Participatory Health Research Approach
Condition: Sleep
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Adolescent sleep deprivation is becoming increasingly recognized internationally as a
      significant health concern. This project will be the first to use a unique approach of
      actively involving adolescents as real life experts in the development of interventions to
      improve sleep behaviour (using a participatory health research methodology) and to evaluate
      the effectiveness of these interventions (using a randomised controlled trial).
    

Detailed description: 
      The project will develop an intervention to promote healthy sleep behaviour in adolescents.
      The intervention will be based on a participatory health research approach to promote healthy
      sleep behaviour in adolescents. Because healthy sleep behaviour is associated with a healthy
      lifestyle overall, the intervention will additionally focus on healthy eating patterns,
      sedentary behaviour and physical activity. In order to become the most effective
      intervention, adolescents will participate during every step of the intervention development.

      Three school in Flanders are contributing to this project on a voluntary basis. All
      adolescents age 13 to 15 of the intervention schools were invited to participate in the study
      by an informative session at the school, where they were informed about the importance of
      their involvement in the study and the aim of the intervention. The adolescents who gave
      their consent, were invited to participate in a workshop were skills needed for participatory
      research were trained. Afterwards, an action group (6 - 8 pupils) was conducted at each
      school. Brainstorm sessions about effective strategies to change sleeping behavior in this
      population. Strategies, perceived as effective by the target population, will be summarized
      in an overview. Also feedback of adolescent, who are not part of the action group, will be
      asked. After feedback, the intervention will be developed by the intervention schools.
      Thereby, three different intervention strategies will be implemented and tested (one
      intervention at each school) to meet the individuals needs of each school. Right now, the
      action groups are busy conducting the intervention materials during a weekly 1-hour session.
      This session is accompanied by two researchers to provoke brainstorm sessions and creativity.
      The researchers facilitate the process, stimulates creativity, organize and keep track of the
      feasibility of ideas. After the development of intervention materials, the intervention will
      be implemented in the school by the adolescents themselves, in collaboration with teachers
      and the two researchers.

      Overall, can be stated that a group oriented approach will be used during the whole
      intervention. For example, plenary speakers will give information about sleep hygiene,
      physical activity breaks will be introduced, sleep behaviour will be discussed in class,
      active transport will be stimulated, a campaign on social media will be started, and
      informative flyers/posters about sleep, screen time, physical activity and nutrition will be
      spread in the close neighborhood, a competition between class groups will be started (based
      on objective data collected using activity trackers).

      The intervention will be analysed using a clustered randomized controlled trial, including
      three intervention schools and six control schools. These schools were recruited in Flanders,
      the Northern part of Belgium, via convenience sampling. The head of each school was contacted
      via telephone. When the head of the school gave consent, all adolescents age 13 - 15 and
      their parents were invited to participate in this study. All adolescents who gave their
      consent, were pre-tested (between November 2017 and January 2018). The pre-test included a
      questionnaire investigating determinants of sleep and a wearable activity tracker to
      objectively measure the sleep duration. The questionnaires were developed based on the
      'Munich ChronoType Questionnaire', 'The School Sleep Habits Survey', 'Sleep Knowledge
      Questionnaire', 'Sleep Hygiene Index' and 'Paediatric Daytime Sleepiness Scale'. Focus groups
      were organized to determine relevant determinants. The understandability of the questionnaire
      was tested with the 'Thinking aloud protocol' and validation testing was performed. After
      implementing the intervention at the intervention schools, an effect-evaluation will be
      conducted based on a pre-,post and follow-up testing and a process evaluation will be
      performed.
    

Intervention name(s): Intervention to promote healthy sleep behavior
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): An action group (6 - 8 pupils) was conducted at each school. Brainstorm sessions about effective strategies to change sleeping behavior in this population were held. Strategies, perceived as effective by the target population, will be summarized in an overview. Also feedback of adolescent, who are not part of the action group, will be asked. After feedback, the intervention will be developed by the intervention schools. Thereby, three different intervention strategies will be implemented and tested (one intervention at each school) to meet the individuals needs of each school. The action groups will develop the intervention materials during sessions this year. Afterwards, they will implement the intervention themselves in collaboration with teachers of the school and the researchers.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Pre, post and follow-up testing with 3 intervention and 6 control schools
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Sleep behaviour; Adolescents; Participatory health research; Intervention