Social media for students sleep health promotion: A health intervention report during COVID-19

Abstract

Abstract Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic affected sleep health. Students’ sleep health requires cognitive processes, mental and physical balance. We assume that the pandemic COVID-19 has modified some sleep habits by eliciting environmental and social interaction changes. According to the perspective that the students need health education interventions on sleep hygiene, we aimed to promote sleep health education based on social media in students using Instagram. Methods Students participated by answering an online questionnaire in Instagram platform. The sample was 300 students with internet access between two weeks of March/2020. This period refers to the second and third week of the social isolation policy enacted due COVID-19. The Snowball strategy was the dissemination method, a non-probabilistic sampling technique in which the participants invited new participants from their network of acquaintances. Results The valid responses were from students among 18–24 y.o. The sample was mostly female (61,7%), between 18 and 22 y.o., and they sleeped less than 8 hours. Also, 76,3% of the surveyed reported somnolence during the day, 70,2% anxiety and 87,8% worse sleep associated to stress and/or anxiety, which indicated the variables for an educational health intervention design in this context. Most of the sample did stipulate a schedule to wake up on the weekdays (96,6%), and 24,4% of the sample didn’t stipulate a fixed schedule for bedtime during the weekdays. More than 150 people (53,2%) didn’t make any effort to avoid screens before sleeping. The responses’ distribution showed that an average number of people (73,9%) try to avoid using the bed for work or watch television, and 83,1% seek to avoid heavy foods before sleeping. Conclusion The Instagram profile focused on the main sleep issues seen in the survey. The posts were created using subjects about sleep process, sleep hygiene practices for students; sleep stages, function and regulation; sleep-wake circadian rhythms. The creation of the @comodormimos profile on Instagram was based on the need for a subject understanding by the researched public. Coronavirus’ pandemic increased the harmful sleep behavior of students. Further studies should be done to understand the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in the student’s sleep health. Support (if any):