‘Sweet dreams’: an evidence-based approach to effective sleep hygiene maintenance for people with an intellectual disability
Paul Francis Horan Assistant professor in intellectual disability nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Sandra Fleming Assistant professor in intellectual disability nursing, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
Michelle Cleary Teaching fellow, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
Eilish Burke Ussher professor in ageing and intellectual disability, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
Carmel Doyle Assistant professor in intellectual disability nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Kathleen Byrne Clinical nurse tutor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Colin Griffiths Assistant professor in intellectual disability nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Paul Keenan Assistant professor in intellectual disability nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Sleep is an essential activity of daily living that is often overlooked in approaches to caring for people with intellectual disabilities (IDs). Poor sleep, insomnia or disrupted sleep can have wide-ranging effects on the health and well-being of people with ID resulting in many adverse consequences.
This article outlines the main challenges that people with ID may have initiating and sustaining sleep, explains the nature, prevalence and causes of sleeping problems they experience and discusses a variety of assessments of sleeping issues. It also examines sleep maintenance, management and sleep hygiene approaches to support this cohort using a person-centred nursing care plan and concludes with some suggestions for sleep maintenance and hygiene. Good sleep hygiene should form a central element of caring for people with ID and this article offers suggestions about care planning approaches to enable good quality sleep experiences for people with ID.
Learning Disability Practice.
doi: 10.7748/ldp.2019.e1958
Peer review
This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and has been checked for plagiarism using automated software
Correspondence
pahoran@tcd.ie
Conflict of interest
None declared
Horan P, Fleming S, Cleary M et al (2019) ‘Sweet dreams’: an evidence-based approach to effective sleep hygiene maintenance for people with an intellectual disability. Learning Disability Practice. doi: 10.7748/ldp.2019.e1958
Published online: 14 March 2019
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