[Patients' sleep in intensive care units and sleep-modifying factors]

Patients admitted to intensive care units sleep poorly, generally because of the environmental conditions of these units. Sleep deprivation in critical patients has severe consequences and can contribute to deterioration of their condition. The quality of sleep of the patients in our unit was evaluated to identify factors that they considered disruptive of sleep. The study included 33 patients who were admitted between April 1998 and January 1999 and had remained conscious and oriented for at least 5 days before being included in the study. We asked them to evaluate how well they had slept during their stay in the unit and to score specific factors that could disrupt sleep (environment, admission to the unit, techniques and procedures) on a scale of 0 to 10. Most patients (63.6%) claimed that they "always" or "usually" slept well. The most disruptive environmental factor was the sound of alarms, pain bothered patients more than fear or anxiety, and endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation were the techniques that most interfered with sleep. The quality of sleep of patients in the unit was apparently uninfluenced by pre-admission sleep problems, the severity of the process, or the type of analgesia-sedation administered. The largest percentage of patients who slept poorly had been admitted to one of the wings of the unit, which should be studied specifically.