Optimising digital interventions for improving sleep and wellbeing in both university students and working-aged adults

越来越多的证据表明，睡眠不足，即使在亚临床阈值，也是不良健康和福祉结果（包括焦虑，抑郁，慢性疼痛，肥胖，II型糖尿病，高血压，心血管疾病和死亡率）的重要风险因素。这导致了一种共识，即实现良好的睡眠健康是提高生产力，促进健康甚至长期预防疾病的可行策略。失眠的认知行为疗法是一种有效的多成分治疗，被推荐为慢性失眠的一线治疗。然而，对于报告亚临床失眠症状的人来说，干预选择非常有限，这可能高达30-40%的大学生和工作年龄的成年人。在缺乏专业支持的情况下，患有这些亚临床失眠症状的人经常在使用睡眠监测健康应用程序时求助于在线睡眠卫生建议。在这种情况下，睡眠卫生建议的有效性未经测试。此外，对睡眠监测的依从性低且可变。虽然定期得到关于他们睡眠质量的反馈，但许多人留下了大量的睡眠数据，而不知道如何利用它们来促进睡眠健康。心理学和WMG之间的这个联合博士学位将为成功的学生提供一个机会，为大学生和工作中的成年人开发和试点亚临床失眠的睡眠干预，作为心理学主导的学生心理健康和过渡期弹性（SMaRT）项目和WMG主导的Midlands Engine心理健康和生产力项目的一部分。根据失眠文献和以前的研究进行的建议导师，成功的学生将调查如何提高动机，以改善睡眠健康（例如，使用应用程序内的财务激励）和睡眠卫生在内容方面的有效性（例如，关于睡眠科学的教育而不是呈现关于睡眠的做和不做）和传递格式（例如，个性化的应用内视频，而不是印刷的传单）。与医疗保健技术研究领域结盟。

Increasing evidence has shown that poor sleep, even at a sub-clinical threshold, is an important risk factor for adverse health and wellbeing outcomes (including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and mortality). This has led to the consensus that achieving good sleep health is a viable strategy for increasing productivity, promoting wellbeing, and even disease prevention in the long term. Cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia is an effective multi-component treatment recommended as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia. However, intervention options are very limited for people reporting sub-clinical insomnia symptoms, which can be as many as 30-40% of university students and working-aged adults. In the absence of professional support, individuals with these sub-clinical insomnia symptoms often resort to online sleep hygiene advice whilst using sleep monitoring health apps. The effectiveness of sleep hygiene advice given in this context is untested. Moreover, compliance to sleep monitoring is low and variable. Although given feedback about their sleep quality on a regular basis, many people are left with a large pile of sleep data without knowing how to utilise them for promoting sleep health. This joint PhD between Psychology and WMG will present an opportunity for the successful student to develop and pilot a sleep intervention for sub-clinical insomnia in students at university and adults at work, as part of the Psychology-led Student Mental Health and Resilience in Transition (SMaRT) project and the WMG-led Midlands Engine Mental Health and Productivity project. Based on the insomnia literature and previous research carried out by the proposed supervisors, the successful student will investigate ways to enhance motivation to improve sleep health (e.g., using in-app financial incentives) and the effectiveness of sleep hygiene in terms of content (e.g., educating about sleep science instead of presenting do's and don'ts about sleep) and delivery format (e.g., personalised in-app videos, instead of printed leaflets). Alligns with the Healthcare Technologies research area.