Engineering a Mobile Platform to Promote Sleep in the Pediatric Primary Care Setting

BACKGROUND: Pediatricians lack tools to support families at home for the promotion of childhood sleep. We are using the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) framework to guide the development of a mobile health platform for childhood sleep promotion. PURPOSE: Under the preparation phase of the MOST framework, to demonstrate feasibility of a mobile health platform towards treating children with insufficient sleep. METHODS: Children aged 10–12y were enrolled (Study #1: N=30; Study #2: N=43). Participants wore a sleep tracker to measure sleep duration. Data were retrieved by a mobile health platform, programmed to send introductory messages during run-in (2 weeks) and goal achievement messages during intervention (7 weeks) periods. In study #1, participants were randomized to control, gain-framed incentive or loss-framed incentive arms. In study #2, participants were randomized to control, loss-framed incentive, normative feedback or loss-framed incentive plus normative feedback arms. RESULTS: In study #1, 1,514 nights of data were captured (69%) and sleep duration during the intervention was higher by an average of 21 (95% CI: −8, 51) and 34 (95% CI: 7, 61) minutes per night for the gain-framed and loss-framed arms, respectively, compared to controls. In study #2, 2,689 nights of data were captured (81%), with no major differences in average sleep duration between the control and the loss-framed or normative feedback arms. CONCLUSION: We have developed and deployed a mobile health platform that can capture sleep data and remotely communicate with families. Promising candidate intervention components will be further investigated under the optimization phase of the MOST framework.