What’s Enough? Why It’s Essential for Nurses to Assess Adolescent Sleep
By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor
Illustration © Anne Horst / www.i2iart.com
In her poem “Sleep in the Mohave Desert,” Sylvia Plath wrote about not sleeping, feeling comfortless, tormented by the “heat-cracked crickets . . . [that] fiddle the short night away” in “the blue hour before sunup.” Though Plath was writing as an adult, sleeplessness and other sleep difficulties have troubled humans of all ages for centuries. Until recently, we could only guess at the health consequences. Now there is mounting evidence that inadequate or insufficient sleep has many adverse effects. Adolescents appear to be particularly vulnerable—and it’s not simply because they’re rebelling against bedtime. In this month’s CE, “Assessing Sleep in Adolescents Through a Better Understanding of Sleep Physiology,” authors Nancy George and Jean Davis offer an in-depth look.
Overview: Adolescents need about nine hours of sleep per night, yet most teens get far less. Inadequate sleep has consequences not only for academic performance but also for mental and physical health; it has been linked to lowered resilience and an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. It’s imperative that assessment of sleep become a routine part of adolescent health care. An understanding of sleep physiology is essential to helping nurses better assess and manage sleep deprivation in this population. Sleep assessment involves evaluating the three main aspects of sleep: amount, quality, and architecture. The authors provide an overview of sleep physiology, describe sleep changes that occur during adolescence, […]
