A Critical Review of Education-Based Sleep Interventions for Undergraduate Students: Informing Future Directions in Intervention Development

Abstract

Young adult undergraduate students are known to be a sleep-deprived population. Sleep disturbances among college students pose many potential risks to health, safety, and learning, and several education-based sleep interventions have been developed to improve sleep among college students. While many interventions have been found to improve sleep hygiene behaviors and sleep outcomes, few studies have identified and examined intervention components that are associated with these improvements. A review was warranted to synthesize current research on education-based sleep interventions and to propose recommendations to inform intervention development. The current review aimed to compare and analyze existing sleep education interventions with regard to specific intervention components and study designs. Through this review and critical appraisal of 12 intervention studies, we found that both brief sleep education interventions and semester-long sleep education courses statistically significantly (p ≤ 0.05) improved sleep knowledge, sleep behaviors, and sleep health among undergraduate students. Cognitive behavioral strategies, specifically self-monitoring, were associated with significant improvements in sleep outcomes, and, thus, may be relevant additions to sleep education-based interventions for college students. Future intervention research is needed to increase our understanding of healthy sleep behavior change among sleep-deprived college students, and to improve interventions to address the adoption and maintenance of healthy sleep behavior. Recommendations are intended to help inform future directions in sleep intervention development for young adult undergraduate students, who are at increased risk for sleep disruption and disturbance and their attendant effects on well-being, performance, safety, and overall health.