Sleep Characteristics of Pediatric Burn Patients

INTRODUCTION: Soft tissue injuries which happened because of high heat, chemicals etc. called burns. Sleep is a complex behavior regulated by the interaction of anatomical and neurochemical areas in the central nervous system. After burn; patients are exposed to many stressors that cause sleep interruption and decreasing in sleep quality. The purpose of this study was to determine sleep characteristics, sleeplessness and sleep habits in pediatric burn patients.
METHODS: This descriptive study was carried out with 96 children who were 2-6year-old in Pediatric Surgery Department/Burn Unit for 2-7 days. For data collection; Demografic Data Collection Form, Sleep Problems Characteristics and Identification Survey which has been created by researchers are used. Data were collected by face to face interviews with mothers. Questions were asked to compare pre and post burn sleep quality.
RESULTS: Of the children, 53.1% were male and their mean age was 3.36±1.39 years. There was a significant differences between pre and post burn periods on children’s sleeping and waking hour, total and night sleep duration, total daily sleep duration, existence of sleep interruption and number of interruptions, trouble of falling asleep and sleep latency, being tired in the morning, forcing the children to wake up, duration of waking up.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: With the knowledge about the importance of sleep, attention should be paid to sleep of children that we are providing care. Supportive environmental regulations should be made to improve the quality of sleep in hospitals.