Abstract

Young adulthood is a time of transition with multiple stressors that may affect healthy lifestyle habits such as sleep. Prolonged sleep disturbances can have harmful health effects along with increased risk for development of chronic diseases. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a text-message intervention on sleep among young adult college students. Using Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), it was hypothesized that a sleep hygiene text-message intervention would increase sleep hygiene knowledge, increase sleep hygiene, improve self-efficacy for sleep hygiene, and improve sleep quality among young adult college students. A randomized control trial (RCT) with a 2-group pretest-posttest design was used to test the hypotheses. A convenience sample of undergraduate university students (n=96), 18-26 years, were recruited using email messages, flyers, social media, and in-class announcements across campus. Participants were randomized to receive biweekly text messages about sleep or healthy behaviors for six weeks. There were no significant differences between groups. There were significant differences within groups for sleep hygiene, sleep quality, and the sleep influences subscale of the self-efficacy for sleep hygiene inventory. Though not significant, scores for sleep knowledge, sleep hygiene, sleep influences and sleep quality improved in both groups. This study suggests that self-efficacy for sleep hygiene is an influential factor in sleep quality. Text-messaging may be an appropriate intervention to promote healthy behaviors to the young adult population.

Date of publication

Spring 5-10-2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/361

Committee members

Barbara K. Haas, Ph.D., Danita Alfred, Ph.D., Jenifer Chilton, Ph.D., Suzanne Dickerson, DNS

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing

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Nursing Commons

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