# Baseline Sleep Literacy, Habits, and Perceptions Among Primary School Children: Foundations for a MAIEC-Guided Community Intervention in Sleep and Mental Health

## TL;DR

The study assesses sleep habits and knowledge in third-grade children to inform a community-based intervention aimed at improving sleep and mental health.

## Contribution

It introduces three new composite indices to evaluate sleep-related factors and establishes baseline data for a MAIEC-guided intervention.

## Key findings

- Children in the experimental community had higher baseline scores in sleep-related indices.
- No sex differences were found in sleep literacy, habits, or perceptions.
- The study provides a foundation for a community-empowerment intervention focused on sleep health.

## Abstract

Baseline assessment of third-grade children revealed heterogeneous Sleep Habits and variable levels of sleep-hygiene knowledge across both school communities.

Three composite indices were developed—Sleep Literacy (SLI), Sleep Habits (SHI), and Sleep Symptoms/Perceptions (SSPI)—to capture modifiable determinants of sleep linked to mental-health vulnerability.

Children in the experimental community showed higher baseline scores across all indices, with the difference in Sleep Habits (SHI) approaching statistical significance and moderate effect sizes observed.

No sex differences were observed in Sleep Literacy, Habits, or sleep-related perceptions, supporting the neutrality of sex as a determinant in this sample.

These findings represent only the child-level baseline data from the broader quasi-experimental MAIEC-guided study.

The quasi-experimental intervention is already underway, and the level of community empowerment has been assessed in both school communities as part of the MAIEC diagnostic process.

The evaluation of the Community Process, using the MAIEC questionnaire, will be presented in a subsequent article focused on community-level assessment, diagnosis, and prediction of intervention pathways for the experimental community as the unit of care.

The results reinforce the importance of early, school-based sleep-health promotion and provide a structured diagnostic foundation for the MAIEC-guided community-empowerment intervention.

Sleep plays a fundamental role in children’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development, and inadequate sleep hygiene is increasingly recognized as a modifiable risk factor for mental-health vulnerability. Background/Objectives: This article presents the child level baseline component of a broader quasi experimental study grounded in the Community Assessment, Intervention and Empowerment Model (MAIEC). The aim was to characterize Sleep Habits, sleep-hygiene knowledge, and sleep-related perceptions among third-grade children from two primary-school communities in northern Portugal, prior to the implementation of a MAIEC-based community intervention. Methods: Regarding the reporting, only the baseline child level assessment of the study presented in the manuscript, a structured questionnaire, integrating the Portuguese version of the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ PT) and questions about Sleep Habits and sleep-hygiene literacy were administered to 40 children. Three composite indices were computed: Sleep Literacy (SLI), Sleep Habits (SHI), and Sleep Symptoms and Perceptions (SSPI). Results: Baseline results revealed heterogeneous Sleep Habits and variable sleep-hygiene knowledge. Children in the experimental community demonstrated higher scores across all indices, with the difference in Sleep Habits (SHI) approaching statistical significance (p = 0.052) and moderate effect sizes observed overall. No sex-based differences were found. Conclusions: These findings identify modifiable behavioral and knowledge-related sleep determinants linked to emotional regulation and mental-health risk. This article reports baseline child-level data from a broader MAIEC-guided study, with the quasi-experimental intervention currently underway and community empowerment already assessed. Future work will present the evaluation of community processes. Overall, these baseline results provide a structured diagnostic foundation for a MAIEC-based community intervention aimed at promoting healthy sleep and strengthening mental-health resilience in primary-school settings.