1253 The Discourse of Healthy Gaming: Associations of Sleep Health Education Delivery Within Collegiate Esports Athletes

Abstract Introduction Collegiate esports continues its rapid growth, and esports athletes are a unique population with distinct lifestyles, and require health education to fit their needs. As such, they share a common risk factor that exacerbates global health inequities and contributes to overall health of all people: risks related to sleep health. Recognizing the lived environment and modes of delivery is imperative to meet the needs of this unique population. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a tailored sleep health intervention to collegiate esports athletes based on attitudes and beliefs from prior established health education theoretical frameworks and models. Methods 38 collegiate esports athlete participants were randomly sampled into three groups: a comparison group receiving passive educational messaging within a home esports arena, a group receiving the intervention on Discord®, and an in-person group receiving traditional face to face education in their esports arena. Surveys were administered post-intervention to determine effects on attitudes and beliefs of sleep health within the context of esports competition on a 5 point Likert scale. ANOVA and subsequent post-hoc testing due to small sample size was conducted to compare the means of attitudes and beliefs across the groups and explore all potential relationships and address inequal sample sizes. Results Composite data for In-person, Discord®, and comparison groups regarding attitudes (M=4.7417; 4.5156; 4.3156) and beliefs (M=4.5833; 4.4756; 4.1556) did not display statistical significance in the ANOVA between all three comparison groups in both attitudes and beliefs constructs (p=.115; p=.118). Post-hoc testing found statistical significance within the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test between the In-person group and Comparison group regarding attitudes (p=.041; p=.240 [Discord®]) and showed the closest association to 95% confidence in beliefs (p=.068; p=0.100 [Discord®]) Tukey’s and SNK testing did not find statistical significance across any delivery conditions for attitudes and beliefs, respectively (p=0.79; p=0.130). Conclusion In-person delivery of sleep health education shows greater association in this pilot study for influencing attitudes regarding sleep health despite baseline lack of statistical significance from ANOVA, though implications of post-hoc data highlight a need for future study to further assess relationships between different modes of delivery. Support (if any)