A new study has provided fresh evidence that changing lighting patterns in hospital rooms can help patients to recover.
The research, published online in the Journal of Advanced Nursing suggests that changing lighting patterns so they are more aligned with normal sleep-wake cycles could help patients feel better with less fatigue and pain.
Most people will say they feel better on a sunny day rather than a cloudy day, and the researchers found that when we exposed to brighter light during the day, such as natural sunlight, patients moods is better and they sleep better.
The study was led by Esther Bernhofer of the Cleveland Clinic and aimed to determine if there are any relationships between hospital lighting, mood, sleep, and pain in hospitalised adults.
Further research would determine if lighting interventions could offer unique, cost-effective ways to more effectively address the problems of sleep-wake disturbances, distressed mood, and pain in hospitalised patients, providing for overall better patient outcomes
Between May 2011 and April 2012, the investigators collected data from 23 women and 17 men admitted to a large academically affiliated US hospital. Over 72 hours, light exposure and sleep-wake patterns were continuously measured. Mood was measured daily using questionnaires, and perceived pain levels were determined from medical records.
The researchers found that hospitalised patients in the study were exposed primarily to low levels of light 24 hours per day, indicating a lack of the natural fluctuation between bright and low light required to help maintain normal sleep-wake patterns. Also, patients slept very poorly, and the less light patients were exposed to during the day, the more fatigued they felt. Finally, the more fatigued they felt, the more pain they experienced.
“It is important to note that these findings were preliminary and more research needs to be done to determine any possible clinical implications of enhancing the lighting environment for patients in the hospital,” said Dr Bernhofer.
“Future intervention studies should include investigating different doses of light exposure for medical inpatients. Such research would determine if lighting interventions could offer unique, cost-effective ways to more effectively address the problems of sleep-wake disturbances, distressed mood, and pain in hospitalised patients, providing for overall better patient outcomes.”
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