Relationship between traits and sleep quality of hospitalized elderly patients and sleep quality of family caregivers.
Min-Huey Chung, Wen-Ting Ho, Hirochika Ryuno and 3 others
PMID 36813732WHAT IT FOUND
Hospitalized older adults with poorer sleep were linked to caregivers with poorer sleep.
Spouses caring for them and older caregivers reported worse sleep. Nurse teams should assess both patient and caregiver sleep, especially when the spouse is providing care.
Key findings
01Caregivers of hospitalized older adults with poorer sleep also had poorer sleep.
02Older caregiver age and being the patient's spouse were linked to poorer caregiver sleep.
03Elderly inpatients had poorer sleep when they were older, used hypnotics, had more chronic comorbidities, or had higher depression scores.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a one-time survey, so it cannot show that poor patient sleep caused poor caregiver sleep or that any change to care would improve either person's sleep. The sample came from one teaching hospital in northern Taiwan and excluded patients with severe dementia, inability to communicate, or mental illness, so it may not apply to all hospitalized older adults. Sleep was measured by self-report questionnaires, and the study did not measure caregiving duration, shared caregiving duties, financial strain, or other caregiver stressors. The study had no long-term follow-up, so it cannot show how sleep changed over the hospital stay or after discharge.
Declared interests
The study received no external funding, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving the patient's sleep will improve the caregiver's sleep. The study measured associations at one time point, so it cannot prove cause and effect.