Methods: One hundred participants (50 good sleepers; 50 poor sleepers) were asked to choose between 2 written scenarios to answer 1 of 2 questions: "Which describes a better (or worse) night of sleep?". Each scenario described a self-reported experience of sleep, stringing together 17 possible determinants of sleep quality that occur at different times of the day (day before, pre-sleep, during sleep, upon waking, day after). Each participant answered 48 questions. Logistic regression models were fit to their choice data.
Results: Eleven of the 17 sleep quality parameters had a significant impact on the participants' choices. The top 3 determinants of sleep quality were: Total sleep time, feeling refreshed (upon waking), and mood (day after). Sleep quality judgments were most influenced by factors that occur during sleep, followed by feelings and activities upon waking and the day after. There was a significant interaction between wake after sleep onset and feeling refreshed (upon waking) and between feeling refreshed (upon waking) and question type (better or worse night of sleep). Type of sleeper (good vs poor sleepers) did not significantly influence the judgments.
Conclusions: Sleep quality judgments appear to be determined by not only what happened during sleep, but also what happened after the sleep period. Interventions that improve mood and functioning during the day may inadvertently also improve people's self-reported evaluation of sleep quality.
METHOD: A quasi-experimental pre- and posttest design with a control group was used to study the effectiveness of an educational intervention on the clinical judgment skills of 80 RNs from two district hospitals. The change in clinical judgment skills during a 6-week period was evaluated using a complex case-based scenario after the completion of the educational intervention.
RESULTS: The mean scores of clinical judgment skills of the experimental group had significantly improved from 24.15 ± 6.92 to 47.38 ± 7.20. (p < .001). However, only a slight change was seen in mean scores for the control group (23.80 ± 5.77 to 26.50 ± 6.53).
CONCLUSION: The educational intervention was effective postintervention. Continuing nursing education using a traditional and case-based method is recommended to improve clinical judgment skills in clinical settings. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2017;48(8):347-352.