A new study is underway to develop a programme that will improve sleep quality in mental health hospitals.
Sleep Intervention Effectiveness Study Tested in Adult Inpatients (SIESTA) is being co-created with patients with lived experience of mental health problems and poor sleep in hospital.
The SIESTA study is the first of its kind that aims to achieve better sleep in hospital and improved mental health. Clinicians and researchers hope that in the long term, it could lead to faster recovery and less time spent in hospital.
Our Trust, the University of York and Imperial College London are leading the research, which has received funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit programme.
Dr Anne Aboaja, a consultant forensic psychiatrist in our Trust, who is leading SIESTA with Professor Amanda Perry from the University of York, said: “Research teams around the world have found that poor sleep is linked to memory problems, low mood, suicidal thoughts and aggressive feelings.”
Dora Katalenac Zovko, a registrar in our Trust, said: “Many people admitted to mental health hospitals experience poor sleep. This can be due to noise, ward routines, medication side-effects and other issues. For instance, up to 80% of people with psychosis and 90% with depression struggle with sleep problems.
“Currently, the recommended treatment for people with poor sleep is an intensive talking therapy or sleep medication. However, some people struggle to engage with talking therapies and sleep medication can have unpleasant side-effects such as daytime sleepiness and addiction.”
Dr Scott Cairney, Associate Professor at University of York and sleep expert in SIESTA, said: “This study represents a crucial step towards improving sleep in clinical settings and will hopefully pave the way towards better sleep and mental health for patients in the future.”
Sarah Bentley, a research assistant in our Trust, said: “We will create the new sleep programme over two years, working with patients, carers and healthcare professionals in two stages.
“In the first stage of the research study, we will collect data to help us determine the different methods that will be used within the programme.
“We will open the study to patients with diverse characteristics such as age, gender and diagnosis to make sure we hear a wide range of views on sleep. This will support us with designing a programme that we hope will help a greater number of different people.
“We will hold focus groups of patients and carers to find out what their sleeping patterns look like, what some of their struggles with sleep are and what they would like to gain from this study.”
Stage two of the study will design the sleep programme with patients, carers and staff at Roseberry Park Hospital in Middlesbrough.
Dr Aboaja added: “The goal of this study is to create a sleep programme that can be further evaluated and used across our Trust, providing a low-intensity sleep solution for adults experiencing poor sleep in hospital.
“SIESTA is in its early stages, however, if in the future the new programme proves to be effective it has the longer-term potential to improve health for many people.”
