Sleep Enhancing Tools: Pilot Study

A randomized, clinical pilot to trial the effect of sleep tools on patients' perception of sleep within the hospital setting.

We propose to conduct this pilot study to improve subjective symptoms of sleep deprivation in non-ICU hospitalized subjects by performing a brief intervention, easily performed at the point of care. Given the heterogeneity of hospitalized patients with varying ages, co-morbidities and other factors (such as pain and fatigue), we felt that an initial pilot study should focus on acceptability of three sleep aids (ear plugs, eye masks and white noise machine) among hospitalized non-ICU patients. Patients will be able to choose which aid they use and will be allowed to change aids during their hospital stay.

The primary outcomes of this study will be 1) improvement in perceived sleep quality as measured by PROMIS, a validated patient-reported outcome information system and 2) quality of care measures (length of stay, medication use and participation in therapy sessions).

PROMIS (Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System) is an NIH sponsored health survey tool.

Information on characteristics (both patient and environment) including demographics, illness severity, number of medications, specific medications (such as sedatives and pain medications) will be collected to examine which predictors of improved perception of sleep quality correlate with use of sleep aids. This study is intended to focus on modifying the environment at the patient level rather than addressing the sources of environmental hospital noise.

Our study has the potential to impact this field with a preventative education based intervention, using simple tools in the non-ICU setting. It is important to understand this is not a study measuring sleep objectively but whether hospitalized patients perceive they sleep better if sleep aids are used.