Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Jun 9, 2023; 12(3): 92-115
Published online Jun 9, 2023. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v12.i3.92
Sleep during and following critical illness: A narrative review
Laurie Showler, Yasmine Ali Abdelhamid, Jeremy Goldin, Adam M Deane
Laurie Showler, Yasmine Ali Abdelhamid, Adam M Deane, Intensive Care Medicine, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville 3050, Victoria, Australia
Jeremy Goldin, Sleep and Respiratory Medicine, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville 3050, Victoria, Australia
Author contributions: All authors contribute equally to the design and structure of this review; Showler L was the primary reviewer of the included literature and wrote the manuscript; Deane AM was the second reviewer of the included articles and edited the manuscript; Ali Abdelhamid Y and Goldin J wrote and edited the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Laurie Showler, MBChB, Doctor, Intensive Care Medicine, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, 300 Grattan Street, Parkville 3050, Victoria, Australia. laurie.showler@mh.org.au
Received: December 28, 2022
Peer-review started: December 28, 2022
First decision: January 31, 2023
Revised: February 13, 2023
Accepted: March 22, 2023
Article in press: March 22, 2023
Published online: June 9, 2023
Core Tip

Core Tip: Disturbed sleep is common among the critically ill and contributes to adverse physiological and psychological outcomes. Multiple contributory factors have been identified, including environmental, care-related and patient elements. Assessing sleep in the ICU is challenging, and objective and subjective methods are required to evaluate the disruption to sleep architecture and the patient’s experience of this. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions to improve sleep quality and quantity have been studied with mixed results, however, a multimodal approach to sleep optimisation is likely necessary to improve outcomes.