A recent study found that sleep quality deteriorated in patients whose pain levels increased while in the preoperative period.
Women, those who had sleep problems before hospitalization, and those who had sleep problems in the preoperative period had worse sleep quality during the preoperative period, according to a study published in Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing. This study found that the amount of pain was greater in patients who had worse sleep quality.
The aim of this study was to identify the sleep quality and pain intensity of patients prior to surgery. The study also aimed to identify the relationship between sleep quality and pain intensity and any influencing factors.
The researchers performed a cross-sectional study among preoperative patients who were hospitalized in the surgical services of Eskisehir Osmangazi University Health Practice and Research Hospital in Turkey between March 1, 2019, and July 31, 2019.
A total of 139 patients participated in this study. The patients were included if they were 18 years or older, agreed to participate in the research, had the ability to communicate, were in the preoperative period, and had no prior surgery experience. Patients were excluded if they had a cognitive, affective, or verbal impairment or were undergoing an urgent surgery.
Data were collected from patients on the morning of the surgery through face-to-face interviews. The researchers used the Visual Analog Scale for Pain (VASP) to evaluate pain intensity and the Visual Analog Sleep Scale (VASS) to measure sleep quality. Patients were asked to indicate the amount of pain they had using the VASP, which was on a scale of 10, with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain. The VASS has 15 items that consist of 3 subdimensions: sleep disturbance, effective sleep, and daytime sleep. A higher score indicated a decrease in sleep quality where a max score was 1000.
