An investigation by CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research draws attention to the urge of creating tools that allow the application of more effective and efficient nursing care in the field of Sleep. The conclusions are presented in the meeting Ciência 2018 – Meeting with Science and Technology in Portugal, which takes place from 2 to 4 July in Lisbon.
The poster entitled “Clinical Model of Nursing Data: Sleep” will be displayed during the three days of the meeting. The objective is the creation of a clinical data model in the Sleep field that can assure the quality of the practices in the process of diagnosis and Nursing intervention.
The authors, among who is Carlos Sequeira, principal investigator of the research group NursID of CINTESIS, at the Nursing School of Porto (ESEP), analysed the nursing diagnosis regarding sleep and verified that insomnia is one of the most frequent (about 15%). Other very frequent cases are those related to “disturbed sleep pattern” and “sleep deprivation” (about 9%).
Regarding nursing interventions, which aim at minimizing the “real crisis of sleep deprivation that affects the health of the Portuguese population”, they mainly include interventions aiming to “reduce nocturnal noise” (6.98%), “guidelines on sleep hygiene (5.81%), “reduce night light”, and “use of relaxation exercises” (4.65%), among others.
Another conclusion is related to the need to raise awareness of health institutions about the contribution of sleep to the recovery of people’s health status.
Data from previous studies indicate that almost two-thirds of the Portuguese population sleep poorly and report high levels of daytime sleepiness. Portugal is actually the country with the highest reported consumption of anxiolytics, hypnotics and sedatives of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The work is also authored by Ana Certo, a nurse specialist in Community Nursing, and by Agustin Muñoz, from the Universidad Católica San Antonio.