Factors Influencing Patients' Sleep in the Intensive Care Unit: Perceptions of Patients and Clinical Staff.
Qinglan Ding, Nancy S Redeker, Margaret A Pisani and 2 others
PMID 28668912WHAT IT FOUND
Patients and staff disagreed on what disrupts ICU sleep.
Staff blamed noise, but patients said worry and uncertainty mattered more. Frequent check-ins reassured patients. Do not assume environmental quieting alone fixes sleep problems; address patient anxiety and expectations.
Key findings
01Staff identified noise as the major sleep stressor, but patients and surrogates viewed in-room interruptions and monitoring as reassuring and necessary.
02More than half of patients and surrogates reported that psychological factors, such as uncertainty and worry, affected sleep more than the environment.
03Staff and patients had contrasting views on sleep quality, with many patients rating their sleep as good despite staff believing it was poor.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Small sample size with unequal proportions of patients/surrogates and staff. Conducted in a single medical ICU, limiting generalizability. Excluded patients with delirium or communication barriers, potentially skewing results toward those who could verbalize perceptions. Staff responses may have been biased by awareness of the study's focus on sleep promotion.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret patient reports of 'good' sleep as objective evidence of restorative sleep. The study highlights a perception gap: patients may rate sleep as adequate due to low expectations or reassurance from monitoring, while objective sleep quality may still be poor. This finding does not validate the current ICU environment as optimal for physiological recovery.