Quality of sleep and its daily relationship to pain intensity in hospitalized adult burn patients

Sleep disturbances are frequently reported in victims following burn injuri es. This prospective study was designed to assess sleep quality and to exam ine its daily relationship to pain intensity within the first week of hospi talization. Twenty-eight non-ventilated patients were interviewed during 5 consecutive mornings (number of observations = 140) to collect information about perceived quality of sleep (visual analogue scale, number of hours, n umber of awakenings, presence of nightmares). Pain intensity was assessed a t rest (nighttime, morning, during the day) and following therapeutic proce dures using a 0-10 numeric scale. Seventy-five percent of patients reported sleep disturbances at some point during the study although, in most patien ts, sleep quality was not consistently poor. Pooled cross-section regressio n analyses showed significant temporal relationships between quality of sle ep and pain intensity such that a night of poor sleep was followed by a sig nificantly more painful day. Pain during the day was not found to be a sign ificant predictor of poor sleep on the following night. These results suppo rt previous findings that perceived quality of sleep following burn injury is poor. Moreover, they show a daily relationship between quality of sleep and acute burn pain in which poor sleep is linked to higher pain intensity during the day. (C) 2001 International Association for the Study of Pain. P ublished by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.