• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.127-138
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• 2008

Purpose: To examine the effects of the environmental nursing intervention using eye-shields and earplugs on the incidence of delirium, environmental stress and sleep among the patients with open-heart surgery in the post-cardiac ICU(intensive care units). Method: This study was a non-equivalent control group non-synchronized design. The subjects consisted of 93 patients who received ICU care after the cardiac surgery. Among those, 32 subjects was assigned in one experimental group with eye-shields, 31 in the other experimental group with earplugs, and 30 in the control group. ICU delirium was measured by CAM-ICU, environmental stress by ICUESS, and sleep by two sleep scales developed by Oh, et al. and Kim. The data were analyzed by the SPSS 13.0 program including frequency, percentage, t-test, $x^2$ test, ANOVA and ANCOVA. Results: There are no statistically significant differences in the incidence of delirium among three groups (p=.139). The ICU environmental stress scores from the subjects of two experimental groups demonstrated lower (F=6.731, p=.002) than the control group. Also, the degrees of sleep pattern (p=.000, p=.000) and sleep satisfaction (p=.000, p=.000) were greater than those of the control group. Conclusion: Although the environmental nursing intervention using eye-shields and earplugs did not demonstrate the effects in decreasing the incidence of ICU delirium, it has affirmative effects in decreasing environmental stress and improving the quality sleep among the patients with open-heart surgery while they stay in ICU. Further nursing implications are discussed.