Measuring sleep in the intensive care unit: Electroencephalogram, actigraphy, or questionnaire?:

BackgroundStudies consistently report deranged sleep in patients admitted to intensive care unit. Poor sleep has harmful physical and cognitive effects, and an evidence-based intervention to improve sleep is needed. It is, however, difficult to measure sleep in the intensive care unit. ‘Gold standard’ monitoring (polysomnography) is unsuitable for usual care.MethodsWe collected concurrent sleep data from electroencephalograph recordings, activity monitoring, and nurse- and patient-completed Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaires (RCSQ).ResultsElectroencephalograph data (n = 34) confirm poor sleep. Individual bouts last approximately 1 min and around 2 h of sleep overnight is common. Correlation between electroencephalograph, self-report, nurse-report, actigraphy and overall activity score is low (ρ = 0.123 (n = 24), 0.127 (n = 22), and 0.402 and − 0.201 (n = 13), respectively). Correlation between nurse and patient assessment is limited (ρ = 0.537 (n = 444)).ConclusionsNo current method of sleep monitorin...