The effectiveness of healthy behavior education on sleep quality in pregnant women with sleep disorder

Background: Sleep disorder accounts for high rampancy among pregnant women, especially in the third trimester of pregnancy. The present study was conducted to assess the effect of healthy sleep behavior education on the sleep quality of pregnant women with sleep disorders in the third trimester. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental design study, conducted on 30 pregnant women with sleep disorders referring to health centers in Tarome city, Iran. Convenient sampling was used. The subjects were allocated to the treatment and non-treatment groups by self-selection. The data collection tools were a demographic questionnaire and a Pittsburg Standard Sleep Quality questionnaire (PSQI). In the treatment group, the education of sleep health behavior was provided during eight sessions, four weeks during the third trimester. The non- treatment group received only the routine prenatal care. Results: Based on the analysis of covariance of the dependent variable components, a significant and positive difference between adjusted mean scores of the two groups was observed in terms of sleep disturbance, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep duration, sleep latency, and subjective sleep quality (p = 0.0001), but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the adjusted mean scores in daily daytime dysfunction. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that healthy behavioral interventions and training could effectively improve sleep disorders in pregnant women.