Effect of eye mask and ear plug on level of agitation and incidence of delirium in ICU admitted patients

One of the most important problems in the intensive care unit patients is the increase  sensory over load. Delirium and agitation are its consequences. The aim of this study was to evaluate  the effect of using non-invasive methods such as the use of eye masks and earplugs on the level of agitation  and the prevalence of delirium in hospitalized patients in intensive care units.

Present study was a randomized clinical trial of two groups of 88 patients admitted to the intensive care unit of Besat Educational and Medical Center in Hamadan in 2017. Patients were randomly divided into two groups:  intervention and control. The intervention lasted from the second night for seven nights. In the intervention group for patients from 10 pm to 6 am simultaneously, eye mask and earplug were used and in the control group, no special intervention was performed. To measure the incidence of delirium, the CAM-ICU questionnaire and the RASS questionnaire were used to assess the level of agitation.

The results of this study showed that patients in both intervention and control groups did not differ in terms of demographic characteristics, room conditions and hospitalization reasons. The results also showed that the use of instruments such as earplug  and eye plug  significantly reduced the level of agitation  (based on the RASS scale) in the intervention group compared to the control group (P = 0.001). Also, the incidence of delirium based on CAM-ICU scale in the intervention group had a significant reduction rather than control group (P <0.001).

The use of eye mask and ear plug can reduce the incidence of delirium agitation of hospitalized patients in the intensive care unit