Reduced Overnight Vital Signs Improve Sleep in Hospitalized Children: A Nonrandomized Interventional Trial.
Skipping overnight vitals let more hospitalized children stay asleep at 7 AM
Reduced Overnight Vital Signs Improve Sleep in Hospitalized Children: A Nonrandomized Interventional Trial.
This study sought to determine the change in sleep quality and duration among children hospitalized on acute care units when overnight vital signs (vital signs) monitoring is eliminated, compared with children who receive standard-of-care vital signs monitoring.
This is a nonrandomized controlled study among children hospitalized on medical-surgical units (n = 109).
more children were still asleep at 7 am with overnight vitals skipped
Actigraphy total sleep time in the intervention group was 49.2 minutes longer than in the control group (P = .04).
Sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset, and wake episodes were not different.
Self-reported restfulness and sleep disturbances were also superior in the intervention group.
There were no unplanned pediatric intensive care unit (intensive care unit)/cardiac intensive care unit transfers, rapid response activations, code sepsis alerts, or code blue events.
Forgoing overnight vital signs measurement among children hospitalized on medical-surgical units was associated with an increase in overnight sleep duration but did not decrease the overall number of nighttime interruptions or time awake during the night.
vital signs measurement reduction was also safe and may be important for children to achieve adequate sleep in the hospital.