The Promoting Healthy Sleep E-Learning Professional Development Program for Health Care Providers: Mixed Methods...

Approximately one-third of Canadian children have insomnia or symptoms of insomnia, defined as chronic and frequent difficulties falling and/or staying asleep. Most health care providers (HCPs) in Canada do not receive comprehensive formal training in the screening, assessment, or management of pediatric insomnia.

This study examined the perceived usability of an e-learning professional development program for HCPs, titled Promoting Healthy Sleep (PHS). The goal of this program is to provide accessible online sleep education to HCPs to help inform their screening, assessment, and treatment of pediatric insomnia in children aged 5 to 12 years.

For this usability study, 22 HCPs working in Canada were recruited from 4 groups (ie, physicians, psychologists, nurses, and allied health professionals), and they assessed the usability of the program using the UX Honeycomb framework from the end users' perspective. Questionnaires that evaluated program usability, satisfaction, and acceptability, as well as participants' sleep knowledge and sleep attitudes and beliefs, were administered.

HCPs' sleep knowledge (P<.001), as well as their attitudes and beliefs (P=.02), significantly improved from before to after program completion. HCPs provided high satisfaction ratings and found the program to be highly usable (ratings of 80% or higher on all program usability and satisfaction questionnaires). They also provided minor suggestions about content that should be revised in the program, such as the need for additional resources and program content suggestions (eg, modifications to increase user-friendliness, program content suggestions, and adding additional resources for HCPs).

Study participants found the PHS program usable and were satisfied with the program content. Accessible HCP training will lead to better identification and treatment of insomnia in school-aged children, as HCPs will be better equipped and more knowledgeable about how to treat insomnia with the proper steps.