Abstract

A descriptive study was carried out to examine the factors influencing the sleep of adult patients staying in hospital. 200 patients hospitalized on the Neurology, Neurosurgery, Urology, General Surgery, Physical Therapy, Internal Diseases, Infectious Diseases, Chest Diseases, Orthopedics, Cardiovascular, and Hand Surgery wards of our university hospital consititute the samples of this survey. Data of the survey was collected using the questionnaire for the sleeping activities developed according to the literature as well as the personal information form. Frequency distribution of the SPSS package program and the chi-square importance test were applied for data assessment and analysis. The survey indicated that the majority of patients were experiencing changes in their sleep behaviors in hospital (69.5%). As for the factors affecting the patient’s sleep; environmental factors such as poor ventilation of hospital rooms, treatments and assessments during sleeping hours, frequent visits, and individual factors such as pain were noted. Gender and the education level of patients were considered to influence sleep patterns (p<0.05), but the patient’s age, clinics stayed in, duration of hospital stay, room characteristics and former experience were not considered to influence the patient’s sleep pattern (p>0.05).