Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

College of Nursing

Sub-Department

Nursing Practice

First Advisor

Stephanie Burgess

Abstract

Insufficient sleep has emerged over the past few decades as a public health concern. As little as 1 to 2 hours of sleep loss can produce extreme fatigue and physiological drives similar to thirst and/or hunger which increases the risk of motor vehicle accidents, work related mistakes and injuries. Sleep restriction whether voluntary or involuntary has produced a culture of chronic sleep deprivation that can be seen throughout the population. Chronic lack of quality sleep has been shown to adversely affect cardiovascular health, cognitive function, memory, immune responses and hormonal regulation among other homeostatic functions. Sleep disorders represent the cause for a majority of involuntary sleep loss. The Centers for Disease Control (2011) estimates that between 40 and 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders.

Though sleep disorders and insufficient sleep are prevalent, the assessment of sleep within the primary care setting is often unaddressed. Sorcher (2008) discussed lack of comfort, knowledge, time constraints and reimbursement as deterrents for assessing sleep. This project was developed to evaluate the impact of technology in the form of an educational mobile application in the assessment and documentation of sleep health in a primary care setting.

The primary care providers, one physician and one nurse practitioner, at an employee onsite health center in Lexington, SC were asked to download and review the sleep related educational mobile application, MySleep101©. The clinicians sleep knowledge was assessed using the ASKME Survey and the scores were compared in the pre and post intervention periods. Overall sleep knowledge was increased by both practitioners though this did not fully translate to documentation. Sleep was irregularly assessed in both pre-and post-intervention periods however there was a slight increase in documentation of sleep quality by the nurse practitioner and sleep hygiene by the physician in the post-intervention period. The need for sleep health assessment is well documented in the literature though the use of this modality did not produce consistent documentation. It is recommended that barriers be assessed in the health care setting before actual technology implementation.

Rights

© 2016, Sonya Cook

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