Using Technology to Promote Sleep Competencies for Behavioral Healthcare Providers: Welcome to the Snoozeum

Dissatisfaction with sleep is one of the most frequent complaints service members have returning from a deployment and one of the top reasons for seeking mental health services (Troxel et al. 2015). Seeking to address this challenge, the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) has offered a variety of training platforms, including in-person or live online workshops, webinars, online resources, embedded personnel at Department of Defense (DoD) medical training facilities, and consultative services, since 2006 to teach behavioral healthcare providers to accurately diagnose and treat mental health disorders commonly encountered in military settings, including sleep-related disorders. [...]Life was selected for its maturity in the field of virtual worlds, its accessibility to new users (i.e., environments can be fully accessed and experienced using a free basic Second Life account), and as an extension to other CDP assets already developed in Second Life. Multiple studies (Mysliwiec et al. 2013; Seelig et al. 2010) conclude that insomnia is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders in military-connected patients. [...]a significant portion of Snoozeum exhibits are dedicated to education in insomnia disorder diagnosis and treatment (please see Table 1 for a description of each exhibit) (ESM 3).