Sleep in family caregivers of ICU survivors for two months post-ICU discharge.
JiYeon Choi, Judith A Tate, Michael P Donahoe and 3 others
PMID 27575618WHAT IT FOUND
Family caregivers of ICU survivors often still reported poor sleep after the patient left intensive care.
Objective sleep did not change clearly over time, but caregivers who worked or were not the patient's spouse had worse measured sleep.
Key findings
01Twenty-eight of forty-seven enrolled caregiver-patient pairs completed all three sleep assessments, and over half of those caregivers continued to report a sleep quality score above 5 after ICU discharge.
02Objective sleep/wake data showed no statistically significant difference across time points, with average total sleep time from 5 hours 28 minutes to 6 hours 7 minutes and wake after sleep onset from 54.2 to 66 minutes.
03Worse subjective sleep quality was significantly correlated with worse depressive symptoms and worse caregiving burden at all time points, but objective sleep/wake variables were not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 28 of 47 enrolled caregiver-patient pairs completed all measures, and many dropouts were due to patient death, so results may not apply to all families. The sample was mostly Caucasian, female and middle-aged, so it does not show how caregivers from other backgrounds sleep. Caregivers' sleep before ICU admission and pre-existing sleep disorders were not assessed, so some sleep problems may have existed before the patient became critically ill. Many differences by caregiver characteristics or patient discharge timing were trends or small subgroup comparisons, not proven causes. The study was descriptive and cannot show that poor caregiver sleep caused patient outcomes or that any intervention would help.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that post-ICU caregiver support improves sleep. It was a small descriptive study, and objective sleep/wake patterns did not show statistically significant change across time points.