Assessment of Sleep Respiratory Apnea in Cardiovascular Patients

Sleep apnea is one of the respiratory problems during sleep and about 50% of cardiovascular patients suffer from sleep apnea. On the other hand, cardiovascular diseases are increasing in our country. Therefore, nurses working in critical care units should have a special approach towards sleep disorders of hospitalized cardiovascular patients.
This study aimed to assess sleep respiratory apnea in cardiovascular patients.
In this descriptive study, 76 cardiovascular patients were selected through random sampling from Baqiyatallah Hospital in Tehran, Iran, during 2015 - 2016. They were assessed in terms of respiratory apnea during sleep. A total of 51 patients finished review processes completely. The Epworth sleep scale (ESS ), which is a standard questionnaire, was used to assess sleep apnea. The subjective findings were assessed using the overnight polysomnography test. Data were analyzed using inferential statistics by the SPSS 19 software.
In this study, 66.7% of the patients were males and 33.3% were females. The mean age of the patients was 55.01 ± 12.1. The mean ESS score of the patients was 15.1 ± 5.1. 15. Ninety-two percent of the patients had sleep respiratory apnea. The mean score of sleep respiratory disorders of cardiovascular patients was 33.05 ± 4.6. The lowest score of sleep respiratory disorders was 3 and the highest score was 126.8.
Sleep apnea during sleep is a common finding in cardiovascular patients. Therefore, the quality of life of these patients should be improved through timly assessment of cardiovascular patients’ sleep disorders. Also, nurses can be effective in decreasing complications and associated problems of these patients through assessing patients’ sleep pattern and referring them to clinics that assess sleep disorders.