Trial reportTrials2021
Does reading a book in bed make a difference to sleep in comparison to not reading a book in bed? The People's Trial-an online, pragmatic, randomised trial.
Trial report in Trials, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04185818 (Citizen Science), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Citizen Science: The People's Trial: A Randomised Controlled Trial
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bedtime Audiobook Listening Motives and Insomnia Status: Survey Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Associations of Mentally Active and Passive Sedentary Behavior with Sleep Quality and Duration in Pregnant Women of Advanced Versus Younger Maternal Age.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- The People's Review protocol: planning an innovative study powered by the public.Research involvement and engagement · 2025Review
- The use of individualised, media-based sleep hygiene education for professional female footballers.European journal of sport science · 2025Article
- Sleep Health Patterns in Romania: Insights from a Nationwide Cross-Sectional Online Survey.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Substituting Book Reading for Screen Time Benefits Preschoolers' Sleep Health: Results from the Ulm SPATZ Health Study.Nature and science of sleep · 2024Article
- Sleep Quality and Perceived Stress among Health Science Students during Online Education-A Single Institution Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Bedtime screen use behaviors and sleep outcomes: Findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.Sleep health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe best way of comparing healthcare treatments is through a randomised trial. In a randomised trial, we compare something (a treatment or intervention) to something else, often another treatment. Who gets what is decided at random, meaning everyone has an equal chance of getting any of the treatments. This means any differences found can be put down to the treatment received rather than other things, such as where people live, or health conditions they might have. The People's Trial aimed to help the public better understand randomised trials by inviting them to design and carry out a trial. The question chosen by the public for The People's Trial was: 'Does reading a book in bed make a difference to sleep, in comparison to not reading a book in bed?' This paper describes that trial, called 'The Reading Trial'.
methodsThe Reading Trial was an online, randomised trial. Members of the public were invited to take part through social media campaigns. People were asked to either read a book in bed before going to sleep (intervention group) or not read a book in bed before going to sleep (control group). We asked everyone to do this for 7 days, after which they measured their sleep quality.
resultsDuring December 2019, a total of 991 people took part in The Reading Trial, half (496 (50%)) in the intervention group and half (495 (50%)) in the control group. Not everyone finished the trial: 127 (25.6%) people in the intervention group and 90 (18.18%) people in the control group. Of those providing data, 156/369 (42%) people in the intervention group felt their sleep improved, compared to 112/405 (28%) of those in the control group, a difference of 14%. When we consider how certain we are of this finding, we estimate that, in The Reading Trial, sleep improved for between 8 and 22% more people in the intervention group compared to the control group.
conclusionsReading a book in bed before going to sleep improved sleep quality, compared to not reading a book in bed.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04185818. Registered on 4 December 2019.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.