The Effect of Interactive Game Supported Sleep Hygiene Training on Sleep Quality, Menopausal Symptoms and Quality of Life in Menopausal Women

Sleep hygiene training requires the acquisition and practice of specific behaviours, but is typically delivered in a single meeting with a practitioner. Such formats may not encourage participation or provide opportunities to review and practice behaviours. An alternative format, game-based learning, provides interaction with activities that have a clear set of objectives, constraints and rules. The digital game creates an individual communication environment that incorporates the digitality, interactivity, virtuality, variability, modularity features of the new communication environment and incorporates these features into the act of playing games. Compared to traditional education, game-based education provides situated learning as it can mimic the real world in which the learner is situated. In educational research, it is emphasised that the game factor increases motivation. In a meta-analysis of 22 studies on video game-based interventions targeting healthy adults older than 44 years, it was found that video game-based interventions had positive effects on objectively measured physical and social health.

Midwives play a critical role in meeting basic human needs and supporting the independence of individuals. One of the most basic needs of menopausal women is the need for sleep. However, in the national and international literature, there is no interactive game-supported web-based sleep hygiene training application for menopausal women. This situation reveals the need to develop an innovative approach in which midwives can provide more effective education and counselling in symptom management. Interactive game-based education was planned to provide a new and effective method to support women's health by increasing knowledge about sleep hygiene in menopausal women and to strengthen the role of midwives in this process.

Inclusion criteria

• Score >5 according to the PDCI
• No problem in speaking and understanding Turkish
• Being in the menopausal period between the ages of 40-60
• Not having a systemic disease (rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, etc.).
• Volunteering to participate in the study
• Absence of menstruation in the last 12 months
• Natural menopause
• Not working in a shift job
• Having the appropriate devices to play the game (computer, smartphone and internet connection)

Exclusion criteria

• - Receiving Hormone Replacement Therapy
• Diagnosed psychiatric illness
• Receiving a cancer diagnosis
• Entering menopause for surgical reasons
• Presence of chronic pain
• Diagnosis of a sleep disorder
• Receiving pharmacological or nonpharmacological treatment for sleep disorder