title: Putting Children's Sleep Problems to Bed: Using Behavior Change Theory to Increase the Success of Children's Sleep Education Programs and Contribute to Healthy Development.
abstract: Sleep is critical for the healthy development of children, yet most children simply don't get enough. Whilst school based sleep education programs have been developed for parents and their children, they have had mixed success. We consider how use of behavior change theory in existing school-based sleep education programs can be improved by applying and apply a broader model to these programs. We find that the mixed success of school-based sleep education programs may be due to a plausible but misleading assumption that simply increasing information about the importance of sleep and the risks of insufficient and/or inefficient sleep will necessarily result in improved sleep behaviors. We identify the potential benefits of using behavior change theory in the development of sleep education programs but in particular, there is a need for theories incorporate the multiple biological, environmental and social impacts on children's sleep. Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological model is presented to illustrate how one such behavior change theory could significantly improve the success of sleep education programs and ultimately support the healthy development of children.
authors.affiliation: Appleton Institute, Central Queensland University, Adelaide South Australia 5000, Australia. s.blunden@cqu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Blunden
authors.affiliation: Appleton Institute, Central Queensland University, Adelaide South Australia 5000, Australia. t.benvensite@cqu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Tessa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Benveniste
authors.affiliation: Appleton Institute, Central Queensland University, Adelaide South Australia 5000, Australia. kirrilly.thompson@cqu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Kirrilly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thompson
keywords: behaviour theory; children’s sleep; prevention; sleep education