Goodnight Poor Sleep: Evaluating a Brief Sleep Intervention for University Students

Goodnight Poor Sleep is a one off, brief (10-20-minute), sleep intervention based on principles of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia and motivational interviewing. First, participants complete an adapted version of the Adolescent Sleep Hygiene Scale (up to 15 minutes). Participants are then given general sleep health information and general sleep hygiene information (developed specifically for this study; delivered via flipchart). Following this, participants receive one of three treatment arms: 1) Still your mind, which aims to reduce high emotional and cognitive arousal before sleep; 2) Get sleepy, which provides information about physiological sleep drive and regularising sleep and wake times, and; 3) Bust fatigue, which helps students organise daytime habits to reduce fatigue. Participants are allocated to one of the three treatment arms, based on their responses to the adapted Adolescent Sleep Hygiene Scale (ASHS). If participants have an average ASHS subscale score of 3 or more, then the corresponding treatment arm is delivered. If multiple treatment arms are recommended (scoring above threshold on more than one ASHS subscale), then the participant chooses which concern they would like to prioritise, and the corresponding treatment arm is delivered. Goodnight Poor Sleep is delivered by peer educators (undergraduate university students) with little or no prior sleep knowledge. Peer educators are first trained by a member of the research team (e.g., Co-ordinator of Health Promotion Unit). Peer educators guide participants through the GPS intervention using a manualised flip chart. Participants are given a double sided A4 pamphlet to take home, which summarises key therapeutic messages. The intervention will be delivered face-to-face on the university campus, where possible (e.g., if unaffected by pandemic restrictions). If face-to-face administration is not possible, the intervention will be delivered online via telehealth. To monitor adherence to the manualised treatment, a second peer educator will complete an observers checklist on a subset of interventions.