This systematic review and meta-analysis advances understanding of the effectiveness and acceptability of digital sleep interventions in adolescents aged 12–19 years. Our findings demonstrate that digital sleep interventions are effective in reducing ISI scores post intervention, decreasing subjective measures of SOL and WASO and increasing objective and subjective measures of TST. These results are important as they demonstrate that adolescents perceive that their sleep is improved after a digital sleep intervention, even if improvement was not always identified from objective measures.
The degree of reduction in ISI scores from baseline to post intervention in the present analysis is in line with a previous meta-analysis of change in insomnia symptoms after digital CBT-I in adult populations (SMD = 1.34 versus 1.36, respectively; Soh et al., 2020). In terms of comparing the adolescent and adult dCBT-I fields (i.e. comparing characteristics from this meta-analysis with the work of Soh et al., 2020), treatment components across the studies were comparable, with most studies involving sleep restriction, sleep hygiene education and stimulus control. Intervention duration was
also similar, with digital interventions typically ranging from 6 to 8 weeks in both adolescent and adult studies. In terms of critical differences between the adolescent and adult fields, much of the data from adult studies have been derived from RCTs with control cohorts, not within-subject studies like in the current meta-analysis.
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