Results of Survey on Parent's Sleep Quarters

A survey posted on the PICU List October 18,1996; Results compiled November 21, 1996

Posted, compiled, and submitted to PedsCCM by Carl G.M. Weigle, M.D.

Responses came from 29 institutions in Australia, Canada, Israel, The Netherlands, and the US.

Continuous Variables:

Variable	Observations	Mean	Standard Deviation	Minimum	Maximum
PICU patient beds	28	15.9	7.9	6	36
Avg Daily Census	25	11	6.1	4	26
Avg PICU % occupancy	25	67.8	13.4	40	93
% IICU beds in PICU	22	6.6	16.1	0	60
# beds for parents	18	7.1	5.2	0	20
miles to ext. rooms	22	.42	.56	0	2

("IICU" = Intermediate Intensive Care Unit")
("ext. rooms" = parent sleep quarters external to the hospital, e.g. a Ronald MacDonald House. I guesstimated "10 minute walk" as 0.5 miles)

The yes/no questions:

Question	No	Yes
Do parents sleep in patient rooms?	22	7
If yes, permanent setup for parent sleep in PICU room?	2	5
Do parents sleep elsewhere in hospital?	2	26
Are these rooms on the same floor as the PICU?	3	21
Are there quarters for parents outside of hospital?	3	24

I was surprised to find that 24% of units allowed parents to sleep in PICU rooms as a mattter of policy, not as an occasional exception. I wondered if that occurred more in smaller (?quieter?) units. Looks as though that might be true, but not to a statistically significant degree, since the p value is .07 by Wilcoxon ranksum (see boxplot below).

Sherri Ewing, who instigated this survey, thanks all who answered. And I thank you too.

Carl G.M. Weigle, M.D.

Document submitted November 21, 1996; accepted November 29, 1996

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Document last modified (formatting only) February 15, 1998
http://PedsCCM.wustl.edu/FILE-CABINET/Practical/Parents_Sleeping.html