SLEEP DISTURBANCE IN HOSPITAL

Sleep Disturbance in Hospital

Sleep Disturbance in Hospital

Introduction

This is my reflective learning journal, which demonstrates the process and outcomes of my elective enquiry on a topic of choice 'Sleep Disturbance in hospital. My motivation for choosing sleeping disturbances, as my topic is that I worked for a number of nights during my hospital placements, and I have noticed that patients in hospitals have difficulties in having a good sleep because of various issues happening at night.

Discussion

Sleep Disturbance

Sleep includes physiological and behavioural aspects that can be measured with the use of interviews, questionnaires, or with video polysomnographic technology. It has an important role in patient's development, influencing not only physical and emotional maturation, but also the cognitive function (Guilleminault, 2002).

Sleep Disturbance is not a rare phenomenon. Patterns and arising of sleep problems influenced in paediatric populations by social, cultural and familiar models, as well as biological and psychological factors. Therefore, all of these aspects must be considered when examining sleep behaviours. Prevalence of SD in patients varies around 19% to 30%. Data is controversial mainly due to methodological differences among studies, with values for SD diverging between 1 to 43% in the international literature. SD varies with age, stage of development, and ethnicity. However, the consequences of SD seem to be universal, reflecting in the patient's diurnal behaviour as excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), and mood changes (Tang, 2001). The regulation of mood and modulation of emotions seem also to be affected by quantity and quality of a sleep, Superior levels of cognitive function like the capacity of abstraction, flexibility, and creative thinking appear to be sensible to the effects of SD or insufficient sleep. EDS a quite common factor in school environments, may appear due to sub optimal duration of nocturnal sleep, besides the SD, leading to a poor academic performance and attention difficulties (Pituch, 2000).

The concept that the relationship between sleep and a patient's well being is bi-directional seems clear enough. These factors per se would justify the realization of studies focusing the prevalence of SD in infancy. However, data in the literature are scarce and poorly standardized. This problem is more common in certain SD like sleep hyperhidrosis (SHY) which seems to be associated to the presence of sleep disordered breathing. There are no studies in the international literature that have evaluated specifically the prevalence of SHY (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

The objective of this reflective journal is to evaluate the prevalence of sleeping disturbance in a paediatric population of a hospital in relation to gender, age, and social economic status, using a validated tool. The sleep of hospitalized patients is likely to be frequently interrupted by treatment schedules, hospital routines, and roommates, which singularly or collectively alter the sleep-wake cycle. Other factors influencing sleep-wake cycles in the hospital setting include patient age, comfort, pain, and anxiety; and environmental noise and temperature (Pituch, 2000). In my opinion, consequences of sleep disturbances can influence outcomes of therapeutic and supportive care measures. The patient with balmy to adequate sleep disturbances ...