Cascading A Healthy Sleep Intervention In Vocational Education

Summary

Sleep is crucial for the mental, cognitive and physical health of adolescents. However, teenagers in 2024 sleep less and less and their sleep is of poorer quality. It is striking that adolescents who follow vocational education sleep even worse compared to peers who follow a technical or general education. It is therefore important to focus on this risk group of adolescents to reduce health differences. However, there are no previous intervention studies that focused on them.

In previous research, a healthy sleep intervention was already developed, implemented and evaluated in a participatory manner. Within this research, the investigators want to focus on evaluating the process of implementation of this intervention among first and second year secondary school students (12 to 14 year olds) and teachers from vocational education. Based on the results of this process evaluation, the investigators want to deliver this intervention as a ready-made package to Flemish secondary schools.

Conditions

• Sleep Quality
• Implementation

Interventions

OTHER

Healthy Sleep Intervention

This intervention has a duration of nine weeks and starts with a kick-off event where the students of the action group provide explanations to fellow students. Furthermore, the intervention is structured in five themes of approximately two weeks each: 1) importance of healthy sleep, 2) sleep and wake cycle, 3) screen time, 4) exercise and nutrition and 5) screen use and mental well-being. Three posters are provided for each theme, five to seven Instagram posts and a class discussion. In addition, healthy sleep is explained during the biology lesson. Furthermore, a competition between classes is organized to sleep as well as possible with the help of an app, classes are given a planner to visualize the workload of school tasks, exercise snacks will be introduced during the lessons and students are given a notebook to write things down in case of worrying. Finally, a closing moment is provided. Flyers with information about healthy sleep in young people are distributed to parents.

OTHER

Co-creation process

co-creation process with students and teachers: to adapt the existing intervention to the needs of the school. For this, schools can recruit 6 to 8 students via purposeful sampling to form an action group. They will be asked to participate in two sessions during the lunch break in which 1) the needs of the students at school in relation to healthy sleep are mapped out and the goals of the already developed intervention are supplemented or not based on the needs 2) a choice is made from the already developed intervention components 3) necessary adjustments are made to intervention components.

OTHER

Training for teachers

implementation of the implementation intervention for teachers. The implementation intervention consists of a one-off training for all teachers of the 1st and 2nd year of secondary school in which the importance of sleep and the intervention and its materials are explained. A manual per theme is then provided to the teachers who will implement components (see also appendix 'Manual Sleep Project'). Consultation moments will be planned in consultation to discuss the progress of the implementation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University Ghent

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Benedicte Deforche, Prof. PhD · University Ghent

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-06-30

Primary Completion

2026-06-30

Completion

2026-06-30

Countries

• Belgium

Study Locations