0917 Project Sleep: A Brief, Online Single Session Intervention Targeting Sleep to Improve Mental Health in Young People

Abstract Introduction Poor sleep has been linked to a range of negative physical and mental health outcomes in young people. Although effective treatments exist, issues with accessibility and engagement remain. Project Sleep is a Single Session Intervention (SSI) developed based on behavioral principles of evidence-based treatments and structured according to SSI principles. Developed with young people in the US and UK, participants receive sleep psychoeducation, engage in a personalized activity focused on behavioral principles for their sleep problem (e.g., insomnia, sleep irregularity), and develop an action plan. The current study is an international collaboration of a pre-post programme evaluation to test the preliminary effectiveness of Project Sleep for motivation to improve sleep. Methods A total of 1,027 young people (ages 13-25 years) who self-identify as having sleep problems participated in Project Sleep. Participants were recruited from the community in the US and UK and through participant registry pools at the universities. The mean age was 18.79 years, 79% identified as girls, and 46% had minoritized racial/ethnic identities. Participants completed a program feedback scale (1-5), as well as their motivation, control, and readiness to improve sleep rated pre-post SSI (on 0-10 scale; 10 = most). Results Most participants reported 6.79 hours of sleep per night (SD=1.48) and most (80%) reported clinical insomnia symptoms (ISI=11.73; 8-23). Participants reported their biggest sleep challenge as “difficulty falling or staying asleep” (41%), “trouble keeping a regular sleep schedule” (40%), or “Not feeling ready for sleep at bedtime” (19%). On average, Project Sleep took 18.19 minutes (SD=11.89). Participants agreed the program was easy (M=4.69), helpful (M=4.39), and would recommend it to a friend (M = 4.30). Participants’ ratings increased pre-to-post SSI across all domains, with most notable gains for perceived importance of improving sleep (pre=7.48; post=8.73) and control over improving sleep (pre=4.97; post=6.88). Conclusion Project Sleep demonstrated initial acceptability and effectiveness for enhancing knowledge about and motivation to improve sleep. Project Sleep has the potential to improve scalability of access to effective, evidence-based strategies to improve sleep and health among young people. Support (if any)