Promoting Sleep Duration in the Pediatric Setting Using a Mobile Health Platform: A Randomized Optimization Trial

OBJECTIVE: Determine the optimal combination of digital health intervention component settings that increase average sleep duration by ≥30 minutes per weeknight. METHODS: Optimization trial using a 2(5) factorial design. The trial included 2 week run-in, 7 week intervention, and 2 week follow-up periods. Typically developing children aged 9–12y, with weeknight sleep duration <8.5 hours were enrolled (N=97). All received sleep monitoring and performance feedback. The five candidate intervention components (with their settings to which participants were randomized) were: 1) sleep goal (guideline-based or personalized); 2) screen time reduction messaging (inactive or active); 3) daily routine establishing messaging (inactive or active); 4) child-directed loss-framed financial incentive (inactive or active); and 5) caregiver-directed loss-framed financial incentive (inactive or active). The primary outcome was weeknight sleep duration (hours per night). The optimization criterion was: ≥30 minutes average increase in sleep duration on weeknights. RESULTS: Average baseline sleep duration was 7.7 hours per night. The highest ranked combination included the core intervention plus the following intervention components: sleep goal (either setting was effective), caregiver-directed loss-framed incentive, messaging to reduce screen time, and messaging to establish daily routines. This combination increased weeknight sleep duration by an average of 39.6 (95% CI: 36.0, 43.1) minutes during the intervention period and by 33.2 (95% CI: 28.9, 37.4) minutes during the follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS: Optimal combinations of digital health intervention component settings were identified that effectively increased weeknight sleep duration. This could be a valuable remote patient monitoring approach to treat insufficient sleep in the pediatric setting.