The Effect of SMS-Based Education on Sleep Knowledge of Mothers of Primary School Students: A Single-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Sleep-deprivation in children decreases the quality of life and endangers health. Increasing mother’s level of awareness can help improve the children’s sleep schedule and avoid many associated problems. Objectives This study aimed to investigate the effect of SMS-based education on the level of sleep knowledge in mothers with 7 - 12 years old children. Methods In this single-blind randomized controlled trial, 13 governmental primary schools in Tabriz (Iran) in 2016 (7 girls’ schools and 6 boys’ schools) were randomly selected among the primary schools, using cluster sampling approach. Then, the mothers of sleep-deprived students were randomly divided into intervention and control groups by using RAS. Both of the groups took a pretest on sleep knowledge by PSKI and then, mothers in the intervention group received education through sending SMS. Finally, all of the participants took again the posttest in two time intervals including a week and three months after the intervention. A number of 92 mothers (experiment = 47, control = 45) completed all of the three phases of the research and the data were analyzed using SPSS ver13. Results The results showed that the difference between the scores obtained in the first and the second measurements of sleep knowledge in the experimental group was significantly different from that of the control group [mean between-group difference of 5.98 within 95% CI of 3.56 to 8.41 (P < 0.001)]. The difference of sleep knowledge scores between the third and first measurements in the experimental group was also significantly different from that of the control group [mean between-group difference of 4.09 within 95% CI of 1.44 to 6.74 (P < 0.003)]. Conclusions The use of SMS-based education is a constant and efficient educational approach for increasing mothers’ level of knowledge about children’s sleep health.