Research has tied sleep problems in hospitals to worse outcomes for patients. This Dutch study quantified how little rest patients get. It found patients slept an average of 83 minutes less at night in the hospital than they typically did at home and found they also woke up an average of 44 minutes earlier in the morning. The research noted people typically woke up three times a night in the hospital, compared with twice a night at home. Seventy percent of study participants reported being awakened by external causes and hospital staff were part of the reason in over half of these cases. The number of patients sleeping in the same room didn’t seem to affect sleep quality. Interventions of interest suggested by the research include dimmed lights in corridors and patient rooms, silent footwear, remote alarms in staff rooms and in the pockets of the nurses, and distribution of earplugs and eye masks at admission.
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