Still too noisy - An audit of sleep quality in trauma and orthopaedic patients.

INTRODUCTION: An adequate amount of sleep is fundamental to health and well-being, especially for individuals recovering from an illness or injury. Trauma patients sustain musculoskeletal and tissue injuries and require a sufficient amount of sleep to promote recovery. However, it is known that patients can face difficulties sleeping in hospitals which impacts on their recovery. AIM: To determine the quality of sleep, influence of sleep quality and the impact of sleep quality on recovery in trauma and orthopaedic patients. METHODOLOGY: An exploratory descriptive design was applied using a clinical audit. As no standardised sleep assessment tool was identified, a sleep audit tool was developed. FINDINGS: A total of 40 patients were recruited from two trauma and orthopaedic wards from a London Hospital in the United Kingdom. Of these 17 patients (43%) rated the quality of sleep as 'poor' and nearly half (n = 19, 46%) reported that the quality of their night-time sleep had affected their recovery. Two-thirds of patients reported noise was the main factor that disrupted their sleep, making it the highest contributing sleep disruptor (n = 26, 65%). CONCLUSION: A significant association between poor quality of sleep and patient recovery was identified in this small sample of trauma and orthopaedic patients. The findings suggest that nurses should try to create a suitable sleeping environment to enhance patient recovery. There is a need for a standardised sleep assessment tool and sleep audit tool so that the quality of patients' sleep can be accurately assessed and documented.