Do all patients in the epilepsy monitoring unit experience the same level of comfort? A quantitative exploratory secondary analysis.
Andrea Egger-Rainer, Sophie Martina Hettegger, Raphael Feldner and 14 others
PMID 34837405WHAT IT FOUND
Comfort in epilepsy monitoring units differed by occupation and centre.
Retired patients reported the highest scores, high school students the lowest. Women reported slightly higher comfort than men, but the difference was small and uncertain.
Key findings
01Gender, occupation and centre were identified as influential variables, but they explained only about 9% of the variance.
02Retired patients scored 28.2 points higher than high school students aged 18 or over on total comfort, a scale ranging from 42 to 252 points.
03Patients in centre D and centre G reported total comfort scores 18.44 and 19.20 points lower than patients in centre A.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Data were collected for psychometric testing, not to identify influential variables. The variables explained only about 9% of the variance, so comfort was not well predicted by these factors. Admission diagnoses were self-reported and not checked. Individual mobility restrictions were not recorded, and centres differed in restrictions and environment. The authors describe the study as a pilot and say results cannot be generalised.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The funder is named as Salzburger Landesregierung.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the occupation and centre differences as proven causes of comfort. This was an exploratory secondary analysis, and the authors say the variables explained only a small part of the comfort variation.