The Effect of Ergonomic Sleep Mask Usage on Sleep Quality and Comfort in Intensive Care Patients

Human is an entity with physiological, biological, psychological, social and cultural needs. The basic needs required to sustain human life must be met. One of the basic needs to be met is 'sleep'. Sleep is a physiological requirement for people. Sleep, which makes up an average of 1/3 of human life; it is a process that causes changes in breathing, cardiac function, muscle tone, body temperature, hormone secretion and blood pressure. This process is the period of resting the body, repairing the cells, renewing the memory, arranging the memory functions and preparing for a new day.

Sleep status can be affected by many factors such as age, gender, diseases, environment, physical activity, nutrition, lifestyle, work life, medication, stimulant or smoking, and emotional state. Treatment and care processes related to patients undergoing surgical intervention also appear as one of the factors that significantly affect sleep. Surgical patients who are under threat before or after the surgery or who need special care because of the tools and equipment on the patient such as the drain and probe can remain in the intensive care unit for a while.

Intensive care units (ICUs) are the most dynamic, versatile and fast units circulating of hospitals where advanced technological tools and equipment are used to provide the highest level of benefit to life-threatened individuals, where highly educated physicians and nurses specializing in the care of critical patients are available. In the intensive care units, the sleep quality of patients due to the alarm sounds of some special devices, the work of health professionals more than other clinics, the circulation is high and the lights are constantly on decreases significantly. In the study conducted by Little et al., 116 intensive care patients were shown as the most common cause of sleep deprivation, 43% noise, 40% pain, 35% position impairment, 33% loud speech, 33% inserted catheters, and 29% time orientation disorder.Although the problem of insomnia in intensive care may vary according to studies, this rate is generally high. In the studies, it was stated that 75% of the patients experienced sleep problems due to noise, alarm sounds were the leading causes of noise, and the most obvious complaints of patients about sleep were waking up significantly.

For those patients who have problems such as pain, hunger, and discomfort from the foreign equipment (probe, drain, etc.) in their body after the surgery, insomnia causes their pain to feel more severe and decrease the comfort level. The use of more opioids to reduce the increasing pain, on the other hand, may cause the patients' recovery time to be extended as it will delay the important criteria such as early mobilization and early nutrition, which are important for the recovery of surgical patients. Therefore, patients should be provided to spend the night well. One of the main objectives of nursing care in intensive care units; to reduce the negative effects of the unit on the patient, to ensure the comfort of the patient, to reduce the anxiety of the patient and to facilitate the treatment by ensuring the patient's compliance with the ICU. Therefore, in order to reduce the existing pains of surgical patients, to be mobilized early, to switch to early nutrition, they should use the factors that help them to get enough sleep.

In intensive care units, non-pharmacological applications performed in order to facilitate the transition of patients to sleep and to improve sleep quality are superior to pharmacological applications with many advantages. Pharmacological applications should not be the first choice due to many reasons such as unnecessary drug use, side effects of drugs, drug interactions. Made studies revealed that non-pharmacological applications increase sleep time and quality, reduce sleep disturbance, delirium, post-traumatic stress disorder and duration of stay in the intensive care unit. In a large-scale systematic study, the effect of non-pharmacological applications on sleep quality was examined and although these applications had significant effects, the advantages and disadvantages of each application were mentioned separately.