Conceptual and operational definitions of the defining characteristics of the nursing diagnosis Disturbed Sleep Pattern.

The review included only a small final set of articles, so it cannot estimate how common disturbed sleep is across all hospitalized acute coronary syndrome patients. The included studies used different designs and sleep measures, including questionnaires and polysomnography, so their findings are not directly comparable. The authors had to use outside sources such as textbooks and dictionaries because the reviewed articles did not provide enough detail to construct the conceptual and operational definitions. The review describes information gathered to build a nursing diagnosis; it did not test whether the definitions improve patient care or outcomes. Interventions that improved sleep in separate included studies were not evaluated by this review, so their effect cannot be attributed to the diagnosis framework.

Do not treat the proposed conceptual and operational definitions as a validated nursing diagnosis for acute coronary syndrome. The authors had to use dictionary entries, textbooks, and an additional article outside the review because the included articles were not enough, and they did not test the definitions in patients.