The Effects of a Sleep Intervention Program on College Students' Sleep Quality

Abstract

This study focuses on sleep quality and quantity in college students and assessed the level of effectiveness that an educational intervention along with reflection has on improving students' sleep habits by helping students to understand what they can do to improve their sleep and seeing if they then make the suggested changes. It is crucial to develop more effective ways to improve sleep as the negative effects can be very extreme on college students. This study will also look at technology use and attitudes toward sleep and how these factors impact the students' sleep quality and quantity. These factors were chosen because technology use is ubiquitous on college campuses. The current study focuses on the effects of technology use in the hour before a student goes to bed. There has been little research on how a person's attitudes toward sleep can affect their sleep quality and quantity and this study will look to further the literature. It is expected that the intervention, which will include an educational presentation on sleep followed by reflection on how a given students' sleep can be improved, will significantly improve their sleep quality and quantity. It is also assumed that attitudes toward sleep will have a main effect on sleep quality and quantity, that reflection on sleep will have a significant effect on sleep quality and quantity, and that technology use in the hour before sleep will be negatively associated with sleep quality. The study used an educational intervention as well as extensive baseline measures of technology use, attitudes toward sleep, and reflection before sleep to measure the possible effective of the intervention on students' sleep habits. The results showed that the intervention and reflections had no significant effect on the sleep quality of students, but did find a correlation between technology use in the hour before sleep and sleep quality, as well as a correlation between students' attitudes toward sleep and sleep quality.