Sleep disturbances: frequent diagnoses in inpatients

Abstract

Sleep disturbances and deprivation are common stressors in inpatients. Nurses must be able to notice undesirable effects of sleep disturbances on the patient’s responses to health problems, and to implement interventions to help them achieve the best possible quality of sleep. This article discusses the relevance of sleep-related nursing diagnoses for inpatients of medical-surgical wards, and presents a synthesis of the tools available in literature to assess sleep.