Improving Sleep Using Mentored Behavioral and Environmental Restructuring (SLUMBER)

To evaluate the impact of a mentoring program to encourage staff-delivered sleep-promoting strategies on sleep, function, depression, and anxiety among skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents.

Modified stepped-wedge unit-level intervention.

Seventy-two residents (mean age 75 ± 15 years; 61.5% female, 41% non-Hispanic white, 35% Black, 20% Hispanic, 3% Asian) of 2 New York City urban SNFs.

Expert mentors provided SNF staff webinars, in-person workshops, and weekly sleep pearls via text messaging. Resident data were collected at baseline, post-intervention (V₁), and 3-month follow-up (V₂), including wrist actigraphy, resident behavioral observations, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) depression scale, Brief Anxiety and Depression Scale (BADS), Brief Cognitive Assessment Tool (BCAT), and select Minimum Data Set 3.0 (MDS 3.0) measures. Linear mixed models were fit for continuous outcomes and mixed-effects logistic models for binary outcomes. Outcomes were modeled as a function of time. Planned contrasts compared baseline to V₁ and V₂.

There was significant improvement in PSQI scores from baseline to V₁ (P = .009), and from baseline to V₂ (P = .008). Other significant changes between baseline and V₁ included decreased depression (PHQ-9) (P = .028), increased daytime observed out of bed (P ≤ .001), and increased daytime observed being awake (P < .001). At V₂ (vs baseline) being observed out of bed decreased (P < .001). Daytime sleeping by actigraphy increased from baseline to V₁ (P = .004), but not V₂. MDS 3.0 activities of daily living and pain showed improvements by the second quarter following implementation of SLUMBER (P's ≤ .034). There were no significant changes in BADS or BCAT between baseline and V₁ or V₂.

SNF residents had improvements in sleep quality and depression with intervention, but improvements were not sustained at 3-month follow-up. The COVID-19 pandemic led to premature study termination, so full impacts remain unknown.