Grant: Project Grant

Many teenagers sleep much less than the 9 hours a night that are recommended, which puts them at risk for difficulties with mental health and school. We took input from youth and developed an intervention to promote sleep for teenagers called SOmNI (Sleep Outcomes mHealth, wearable sensor and Nudging Intervention). SOmNI uses a wrist-worn sensor to track sleep, and delivers feedback and suggestions for behavior change, along with real-world (e.g. gift certificates) and virtual rewards (e.g. points, stickers) through an easy-to-use mobile app. We previously received CIHR funding to test SOmNI in a small group and found that those teens enjoyed using the app, increased the amount of sleep they got (an additional 44 minutes on school nights) and improved their functioning at school. We now want to compare SOmNI and a version of SOmNI with virtual (instead of real-world rewards) versus usual care (receiving no information or advice about sleep) in a larger study. We want to know if SOmNI with virtual or real-world rewards increases nighttime sleep on school nights, if they decrease mental health symptoms, and what their effects are on sleep quality, sleepiness and school attendance. We will include teens who are in high school, sleep less than 8 hours on weeknights, sleep more than 9 hours on weekend nights, and live anywhere in Canada. We will not include teens with any major health or sleep problem. The study will measure sleep at the start of the study and 5- and 10-weeks after they are assigned to their group. By giving teens information and advice to change their sleep through an app linked to a wrist-worn sleep tracker we may be able to reach many teens and increase their sleep when they most need its health benefits.