Determination of Factors Affecting Sleep Quality in Postoperative Patients and Improvement of Correctible Causes

Abstract

Patients who had postoperative major abdominal surgery and major cardiovascular surgery were included in our study. A total of 103 patients were included in the study. Patients were evaluated with the Pitssburg sleep quality index questionnaire between five and seven days postoperatively. All questionnaires and scales were administered by the same researcher without specifying the participant's name in order to maintain consistency. After explaining the scope and purpose of the study, written consent of all participants was obtained. Pittsburg sleep quality index is a 19-item self-report scale that evaluates sleep quality and disorder. It consists of 24 questions, 19 questions are self-report questions, 5 questions are questions to be answered by the spouse or roommate. The 18 scored questions of the scale consist of 7 components. Subjective Sleep Quality, Sleep Latency, Sleep Duration, Habitual Sleep Efficiency, Sleep Disorder, Sleeping Drug Use, and Daytime Dysfunction. Each component is evaluated over 0-3 points. The total score of the 7 components gives the scale total score. The total score ranges from 0 to 21. A total score greater than 5 indicates "poor sleep quality". In our study, we aimed to investigate whether anesthetic agents, concomitant diseases, type of surgery, and some biochemical parameters affect sleep quality in postoperative patients. The diseases we investigated included hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, asthma, heart failure, cerebrovascular diseases, thyroid function disorders, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney diseases, and chronic kidney failure. We also evaluated the sociocultural levels of the patients as an important part of the study. Educational status of our patients, literacy rates and occupations were also important to us. In our study, we showed that anesthetic agents [hypnotic and opioid] had no effect on sleep quality, and sleep quality was worse in cardiovascular surgery cases, although it was not statistically significant. We showed that a long operation time (5 hours and more) impairs postoperative sleep quality, thyroid diseases affect sleep quality badly, and sleep disorders are more common especially in patients with COPD. We think that sleep has a very important place in accelerating the recovery process of postoperative patients and that sleep disorders should be questioned better and that postoperative patients with sleep disorders should definitely seek psychological and medical help.