Abstract
Adolescents get insufficient sleep, adversely affecting health. Mind–body integrative health interventions for adolescents have been shown to reduce stress, a barrier to good sleep. This scoping review aimed to synthesize mind–body integrative health interventions for adolescents, how interventions were implemented, who was reached. A systematic search of four online databases was conducted. Randomized, quasi-experimental, and single-group designs with participants ages 10–24 years were included. Twelve studies covering 10 interventions using mindfulness, qigong, aromatherapy, or yoga were identified. Participants were predominantly female; only one study reported participants’ race or ethnicity (81% non-Hispanic white). Most (n = 6) interventions were delivered in groups, and half reported significant improvements in subjective sleep quality. Mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy were the most commonly used modalities, with reported impact on sleep outcomes measured objectively. The two interventions that found statistically significant, moderate improvements in objectively-measured sleep onset latency and sleep efficiency were of higher intensity and used mindfulness. Four interventions were self-directed; participants in these struggled with adherence; significant impacts on sleep were not found. While findings were mixed, stemming in part from the quality of the underlying studies, this review identified several promising features of interventions, including using mindfulness, ensuring sufficient intervention dose, and targeting interventions towards adolescents with poor sleep at baseline (rather than a general population of adolescents). The findings suggests that sleep interventions for adolescents may improve psychological well-being as an intermediate effect, as sleep improvements were observed mostly among participants with poor sleep quality or anxiety symptoms at baseline. This review identified several gaps in the literature. Despite documented racial and ethnic disparities in sleep quality among adolescents, published evidence of mind–body integrative health-based sleep interventions among Black and Latinx adolescents is lacking. None of the studies in this review assessed developmental stage or age differences, despite documented differences in sleep across age groups of adolescents. These two gaps in the evidence should be addressed in future intervention research.
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The authors thank Elodie “Lili” Warren for her foundational exploration of mind-body integrative health interventions for adolescents.
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NIH/NIMHD (R21 MD013991; PIs: Garbers and Bruzzese). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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SG conceived of the study, developed and refined the research question, extracted and synthesized the information, drafted and revised the manuscript, and served as corresponding author; NQU and REH refined the research question and extracted and synthesized the information, and drafted tables; JU developed the Methods, structured and executed the search and extracted the information; MAG conceived of the study, developed and refined the research question, and revised the manuscript; JMB conceived of the study, developed and refined the research question, developed the Methods, extracted and synthesized the information and revised the manuscript. All authors participated in edits to the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.
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Preregistration: The protocol for this scoping review was published with Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/HZKYW; available at https://osf.io/hzkyw).
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Garbers, S., Umar, N.Q., Hand, R.E. et al. Mind–Body Integrative Health (MBIH) Interventions for Sleep Among Adolescents: A Scoping Review of Implementation, Participation and Outcomes. Adolescent Res Rev 7, 565–589 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-021-00176-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-021-00176-z