Sleep Interventions in Hospitalized Patients

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Sleep Interventions in Hospitalized Patients
Student’s Name
Department, Institutional Affiliation
Course Number: Course Name
Instructor’s Name
Assignment Due Date

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Sleep Interventions in Hospitalized Patients
Clinical Question
Sleep deprivation is a major health issue affecting many people in society, including
hospitalized patients. The hospital environment has different conditions which often cause sleep
deprivation among in-patients. Hospitalized patients may suffer from sleep deprivation due to
acute and chronic pain; medical conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and
medications used to manage the conditions, such as sedatives. The hospital environment is also
multifaceted due to the regular interruptions, abnormal noise and lighting, and disruption in the
regular sleep cycle by patients and providers. A study by Kulpatcharapong et al. (2020) showed
that 55% of hospitalized patients experienced sleep deprivation during their hospital stay. Sleep
deprivation among hospitalized patients may cause negative health consequences such as
impaired cognitive function, weakened immune systems, mental health issues, and exacerbated
pain. The numerous negative health outcomes make sleep deprivation among hospitalized
patients a serious issue that needs to be addressed because solving it would improve their health
and overall quality of life.
A PICOT (Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Time) analysis when
researching the topic of sleep interventions among hospitalized patients is necessary because it
helps the researcher develop a focused study. The PICOT question is “In the hospitalized patient
(P), what is the effect of non-pharmacologic sleep intervention (I) versus pharmacologic
intervention (C) on patient’s overall satisfaction and improved sleep (O)?” The purpose of this
paper is to describe the research process when answering the question “In the hospitalized
patient, what is the effect of non-pharmacologic sleep intervention versus pharmacologic

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intervention on patient’s overall satisfaction and improved sleep?” by using reliable scholarly
databases to identify the two best articles addressing the topic.
Levels of Evidence
The question “In the hospitalized patient, what is the effect of non-pharmacologic sleep
intervention versus pharmacologic intervention on patient’s overall satisfaction and improved
sleep?” is a therapy question. Therapy questions analyze the level of effectiveness of
interventions, treatment, or preventative measures when addressing specific outcomes. The study
seeks to compare the effectiveness of non-pharmacologic measures to pharmacologic measures
to determine the best intervention alternative for sleepless hospitalized patients. The comparison
between the effectiveness of non-pharmacologic and pharmacologic intervention is typical to
therapy questions. This is because, just like therapy questions, the comparison analyzes the level
of effectiveness of different interventions when addressing specific outcomes. The best type of
evidence to answer the research question is a randomized control trial (RCT),which randomly
assigns patients to either be in the intervention group (pharmacological) or the control group
(non-pharmacological). The two groups’ sleep patterns and schedules would then be monitored
to determine the effectiveness of each intervention alternative.
Search Strategy
The initial search terms for the topic were based on the elements of the PICOT question:
hospitalized patient (P), non-pharmacological sleep interventions (I) pharmacological sleep
interventions (C), and quality of sleep (O). The synonyms for these terms were also employed to
maximize the search scope to ensure as many relevant results as possible. I used the CU library
which gave me access to popular databases such as Google Scholar, Jstor, and PubMed. The