Publication Date

7-1-2024

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Social Sciences

Volume

13

Issue

7

DOI

10.3390/socsci13070364

Abstract

Introduction: Social workers, the largest group of mental health clinicians in the United States, play a pivotal role in mental health promotion. Despite the importance of sleep for mental health, there is no empirical research on sleep education interventions for social workers. Method: We designed an online sleep health education intervention to equip social work students to promote healthy sleep practices among their clients. An interdisciplinary team of experts devised the 90 min intervention using an empirically supported behavioral change theoretical model (COM-B). The intervention discusses multi-level factors that impact sleep and emphasizes considerations for health disparities in populations commonly served by social workers (e.g., unhoused populations, clients with substance use disorders, etc.). We assessed sleep knowledge, sleep quality, and acceptability using survey and focus group data. Results: Ninety social work students (92.2% female, 38.8% non-Hispanic white) completed pre- and post-intervention assessments. Participants demonstrated significant improvements in sleep health knowledge and their personal sleep quality. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed perceived usefulness for social work practice. Conclusions: A short online sleep education intervention can improve sleep health knowledge, offering a practical method to expand social workers’ understanding of healthy sleep promotion that can be readily implemented in clinical training and practice.

Funding Number

196-FP-18

Funding Sponsor

American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation

Keywords

health education, sleep, sleep health, sleep hygiene, social work

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Research Foundation

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