Does sleep education change sleep parameters? comparing sleep education trials for middle school students in Australia and New Zealand.

Background: Adolescents suffer daytime consequences from sleep loss. Sleep education programs have been developed in an attempt to increase sleep knowledge and/or duration. This paper presents data from three trials of the Australian Centre for Education in Sleep (ACES) program for adolescents. Methods: The ACES program was delivered to 69 Australian adolescents in a pre-post cross-sectional design (mean age 15.2) and 29 New Zealand adolescents in a randomised control trial (mean age 14.8 years). Assessments in sleep parameters were undertaken at baseline and post intervention. Results: Where sleep knowledge was evaluated (Australian trials), significant improvements were shown in all trials (All p <0.05). Where sleep duration was assessed (New Zealand trial) significant improvements were found in week and weekend sleep duration [F(1, 27)=4.26, p=0.04). Both, students and teachers found the program feasible, interesting, and educational. Conclusions: ACES sleep education programmes can improve both sleep knowledge and sleep duration in adolescents. Improving the programme so sleep knowledge attained equates to actual sleep behaviour change are areas for future direction. Collectively these findings provide encouraging signs that adolescents can improve their sleep knowledge and behaviour with sleep education which bodes well for sleep-related health and psycho-social issues.