Self-care strategies to facilitate sleep in patients with heart disease--a qualitative study

This study aimed at exploring and describing the self-care management strategies used by patients with coronary artery disease to facilitate sleep. Qualitative interviews in a dialogue manner, in a phenomenographic reference frame analyzed according to manifest and latent principles of qualitative content analysis, were performed. A purposeful sampling technique was used including 11 patients with coronary heart disease in a Heart Medical Unit in a general hospital setting. Two main themes were identified: 'sleep-rhythm' and 'sleep-hygiene' including four descriptive categories. The categories reveal five basic responses including emotions, cognition, physical symptoms (reactions), behaviours and/or the sleep environment, which were related to perceived or actual presence of sleep-wake problems and health that were the underlying reason for the self-care management strategies. Basically, intervention studies that address these five responses for choice of non-pharmacological methods based on cognitive behavioural therapy provided by nurses are needed.