Patients’ self-assessed sleep as a nursing tool during hospital care: A pilot study

Abstract

Sleep in hospital is considered a challenge from both a patient and a nursing perspective. To enable nurses to promote patients’ sleep during hospital care it is essential to have valid, reliable and useful sleep assessment tools at hand. The aim of the present study was to evaluate and compare the outcomes of objectively estimated sleep and self-reported sleep quality. Data were collected through continuous wrist-worn actigraphy and completion of the Richards–Campbell Sleep Questionnaire (RCSQ) in a pilot study on 25 patients during hospital care. A correlation between mean values for the two assessments was shown for the second night but not for the third night of assessment, and it was concluded that the two assessments might capture different dimensions of sleep. Furthermore, based on a high response rate and an evident feasibility in a nursing context the RCSQ may facilitate person-centered care.