Pediatr Crit Care Me
-
Pediatr Crit Care Me · Feb 2014
Observational StudySleep, Sleepiness, and Fatigue Outcomes for Parents of Critically Ill Children.
To describe sleep quantity, sleep patterns, fatigue, and sleepiness for parents of critically ill hospitalized children. ⋯ We performed a prospective observational study of 118 parents of critically ill children using objective measures of sleep and validated scales to assess fatigue and sleepiness. We found that more than a quarter of nights met criteria for acute sleep deprivation, there was considerable variability in the amount of nocturnal sleep that individual participants slept on different nights, and sleep was fragmented with a large portion of the night spent awake. Future research should focus on interventions that improve parents' ability to return to sleep upon awakening and maintain regular sleep-wake schedules.