Sleep Hygiene Interventions for Hospitalized Pediatric Patients

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Adequate sleep is found to improve overall physical and mental health. Unfortunately, hospitalized children receive significantly less sleep than what is recommended by the National Sleep Foundation.

LOCAL PROBLEM: Patient and family feedback at the project site demonstrated inadequate sleep and a noisy hospital environment. The objective of this EBP project is to improve sleep for the hospitalized pediatric patient.

METHODS: The Johns Hopkins Evidence Based Practice Model for Nurses and Healthcare Providers was used as the framework for this project. The PROMIS Sleep Disturbance 4a questionnaire was the tool used to measure pediatric patients’ perceptions of sleep. Data was collected for three weeks prior to intervention implementation and for three weeks after intervention implementation.

INTERVENTIONS: The interventions included decreasing overnight sleep disruptions and providing relaxation techniques for patients. This specifically involved implementation of an overnight quiet time, staff empowerment to ask providers to reduce frequency of vital signs as appropriate, and encouragement of staff to follow other orders that could decrease hospital noise. QR codes linked to relaxation videos were posted in each patient room.

RESULTS: There was statistically significant improvement from pre-intervention to post-intervention groups in overall PROMIS scores, and in the following three scores: sleeping through the night, having problems with sleep, and having trouble sleeping. There was no significant difference between child completed and parent-proxy completed questionnaires or between questionnaires of participants in each age group. No participants from the post-intervention group reported utilizing the posted relaxation videos.

CONCLUSIONS: Decreasing overnight sleep disruptions alone significantly improved the hospitalized pediatric patients’ perception of sleep. These interventions were perceived as effective by both the child and the parent-proxy, and were effective for children of all ages. These interventions are easy-to-implement and free of cost, and therefore should be considered for implementation on all pediatric units.