Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Adolescence is marked by significant changes in sleep physiology, which provides crucial insights into brain development and health outcomes. However, sleep has been difficult to measure on a large scale due to the limitations of polysomnography. Emerging portable devices, like the Dreem3 headband (Dreem3), offer a scalable and accessible alternative, with validation studies in adults showing strong feasibility and accuracy, but validation data for adolescents remain limited. This pilot study evaluated the acceptability and feasibility of the Dreem3, and day-to-day stability of Dreem3-derived sleep estimates, in adolescents and young adults. METHODS: Eighty-one participants completed 3 consecutive nights of sleep recordings with the Dreem3: 32 Adolescents (9-17yrs) and 49 Young Adults (18-26yrs). We evaluated acceptability with a user experience survey and determined feasibility based on completion and quality of sleep recordings. We used intraclass correlation coefficients to assess between-night stability of sleep macro-architecture and micro-architecture estimates. RESULTS: Dreem3 was similarly acceptable for Adolescents and Young Adults (p-values>0.1) on most user experience survey outcomes except that the Young Adult group reported poorer sleep quality on Dreem3 nights relative to the Adolescent group (p<0.05). The number of recording nights (total and good quality) between-night stability of sleep architecture did not differ between groups (p-values>0.05). CONCLUSION: Our pilot data indicates that Dreem3, is well-accepted and feasible in young people, and provide moderately stable sleep data across nights. These findings open the door to large-scale, at-home sleep studies with portable sleep recording devices in adolescents.