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cbc.ca

Sleepwell

Also: mysleepwell.ca · YAWNS NB (Your Answers When Needing Sleep in New Brunswick) · YAWNS-1

A direct-to-patient programme and website that teaches CBT-I self-help and how to come off sleeping pills. The mailed version is a cover letter plus two booklets, 'How to Stop Sleeping Pills' and 'How to Get Your Sleep Back'.

Years
2018–now
Country
Canada
Topic
Low value carePatient safetySleep
Asks people to
StopSubstitute
Strategy
Self efficacy
Channel
PrintWebsite
Audience
Older adults
older adults on long-term sedative-hypnotics, adults with insomnia

Evidence

ExperimentalPositive

YAWNS NB pragmatic RCT (565 adults 65+ in New Brunswick): 46.6% stopped or cut dose by 25%+ at 6 months with Sleepwell vs 34.8% with updated EMPOWER booklets and 20.3% with usual care; Sleepwell also improved sleep efficiency and insomnia severity. Prescribers rated it highly acceptable (80.7%), though only 40 of 250 answered.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Dalhousie University (David Gardner) Academic

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Sources

  1. Sleepwell (official page) sponsor
  2. Patient Self-Guided Interventions to Reduce Sedative Use and Improve Sleep: The YAWNS NB Randomized Clinical Trial evaluation · 2024 · DOI 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.2731 · PMID 39292452
  3. A protocol for a randomized controlled trial comparing Sleepwell, EMPOWER, and treatment-as-usual (YAWNS NB) evaluation · 2022 · DOI 10.1016/j.rcsop.2022.100164 · PMID 36045710
  4. Prescriber Acceptability of a Direct-to-Patient Intervention for BZRA Deprescribing and Behavioural Management of Insomnia in Older Adults evaluation · 2024 · DOI 10.1017/S0714980824000114 · PMID 38456246
  5. New website promotes tackling insomnia without use of medication news · 2018
  6. Healthy Seniors Pilot Project end-of-project report synopsis (YAWNS) sponsor

Research notes

Created 2026-10-23 from the sleep campaign literature search (PubMed and web search; OpenAlex was unreachable), see docs/sleep-campaigns-literature.md. Findings are paraphrased from abstracts, not full texts; official URLs come from search results and were not opened. mysleepwell.ca URL is named in the PubMed abstract (38456246); page not opened. The YAWNS team recommended Sleepwell as the centrepiece of a provincial sleep campaign for older adults. Top sleepliteracy.org candidate.

Record cases/sleepwell-canada.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign