Effects of nursing interventions applied at night on sleep quality and sleep effort of patients in the intensive care unit

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of nursing care interventions applied at night on the sleep quality and sleep effort of intensive care patients. This study is descriptive and cross-sectional in nature. The sample size consists of 82 intensive care patients. Personal information form, Glasgow Coma Scale, Richard-Campbell Sleep Scale, Glasgow Sleep Effort Scale were applied to the patients. In the analysis of the data, Independent Samples t test, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Pearson Correlation test, and multilinear regression analysis were used. Based on the findings of the examined patients, it was concluded that care interventions may disrupt the sleep of intensive care patients. It is thought that determining the care interventions that disrupt the sleep of intensive care patients may contribute to better planning of care and preserving the sleep patterns of the patients. Basd on our results, nursing education programs and intensive care unit introductory courses should be reviewed to understand the importance of sleep. In this context, reducing unnecessary interventions and diagnostic procedures at night, evaluating and managing pain, using questionnaires for daily bedside evaluation of sleep quality, and implementing interventions that support sleep quality and sleep should be an integral part of nursing care. Insomnia is a significant stressor in the intensive care unit. Therefore, it is important for nurses, who are primarily responsible for care, to determine the sleep quality of patients, evaluate the factors that reduce sleep quality, and implement preventive interventions to ensure patient comfort. It is expected that this study will lead to plans for grouping nursing care interventions in a way that will not affect sleep.