A school-based sleep education program to improve sleep duration, latency, and efficiency of Spanish children

(1) To analyze the effectiveness of a school-based sleep education program on sleep duration, latency, and efficiency, as well as separated by weekdays and weekend days and by sex. (2) To analyze children's sleep patterns (duration, latency, and efficiency) on weekdays and weekend days and by sex. A total of 110 children (average age of 8.4 (0.3) years, 62% girls) (experimental group (60 children, girls 52%) and control group (50 children, girls 74%) from 5 schools in Granada (Spain) participated in the study. The sleep patterns were measured by accelerometers attached to the non-dominant wrist 7 days/24 h, and by sleep log. The program lasted 8 weeks with a total of eight activities (one activity per week). Regarding our first objective, sleep duration decreased significantly in both groups on weekdays ( p = 0.004) and weekend days ( p < 0.001), and this reduction in sleep duration was lower in the experimental group than control group. By sex, girls of the experimental group reported a lower reduction in sleep duration on weekdays ( p = 0.037) and weekend days ( p < 0.001) than boys and reported better sleep efficiency than boys ( p = 0.050). Regarding the second objective, children slept 12.41 min more on weekend days than weekdays ( p = 0.037). Our sleep program did not increase the sleep duration in children, but it did increase sleep efficiency for girls on weekend days. Long-term multicomponent programmes that involve families to a greater extent seem necessary to improve this health-related behavior.