Continuing Nursing Education. Sleep Issues with Patients Receiving Hemodialysis.

Poor sleep among the general population is understudied, unrecognized, and often not assessed. This is especially true for patients receiving hemodialysis. This study used a case study design to examine the impact of hemodialysis treatments on the sleep of two patients as measured by actigraphy and self-reported sleep logs. Patient 1 experienced an average sleep efficiency of 82.3% on non-hemodialysis days compared to 75.0% on dialysis days, which resulted in a 7.3 percentage point change and 9.7% better sleep efficiency on non-hemodialysis days. Patient 2 reported sleep efficiency 76.6% on non-hemodialysis days compared to 70.5% dialysis on days, resulting in a 6.1 percentage point change and 8.7% better sleep efficiency on non-hemodialysis days. Actigraphy sleep patterns provided an initial move toward best practice for sleep evaluation in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]