Background: Sleep is essential for the physical and psychological restoration of inpatients, and lack of sleep results in sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality, with potentially harmful consequences. Aim: To summarise sleep-promoting interventions in the Intensive care unit (ICU) and acute ward setting. Method and results: Six databases were searched to obtain studies for review and eight studies were selected, appraised, analysed and produced two themes: sleep-disturbing factors and sleep-promoting strategies. Sleep-disturbing factors included environmental factors (such as light and noise), illness-related factors (such as pain, anxiety and discomfort), clinical care and diagnostics. Sleep-promoting strategies included using pharmacological aids (medication) and non-pharmacological aids (reducing noise and disturbances, eye masks, earplugs and educational and behavioural changes). Conclusion: The literature review showed that both ICU and acute ward settings affect patients' sleep and both use similar strategies to improve this. Nevertheless, noise and sleep disturbances remain the most critical sleep-inhibiting factors in both settings. The review recommended future research should focus on behavioural changes among health professionals to reduce noise and improve patients' sleep.

Background: The reasons for nurse shortages are the ageing healthcare workforce, increasing demand for services, employee dissatisfaction, life–work imbalance and burnout. Aim: To review the literature to find out whether there is evidence to support preceptorship and clinical supervision programmes in retaining nurses, and particularly newly qualified nurses (NQNs), in clinical practice. Methods: A search of databases, as well as other sources, was carried out, with six studies selected for data analysis. Findings: Thematic analysis was used to synthesise the results and produced seven themes: increase satisfaction, gain competence and feel more confident; competencies of preceptors and supervisors; framework or model required; the challenge to the programmes; intention to stay and staff retention; voluntary withdrawal from the nursing profession; and further support for development. Conclusion: Training (preceptorship and clinical supervision programmes) is effective in retaining NQNs, increasing satisfaction, improving skills and competency and staff engagement; however, more support for both preceptors/supervisors and NQNs is needed to maximise the success of these programmes in the future.

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Hospital wards are noisy environments, and this has been recognised as a global healthcare challenge. Excessive noise can reduce staff performance and disrupt patients' sleep, delaying their recovery and leading to a prolonged stay. Research has suggested that digital noise display devices can alert ward staff and prompt them to reduce noise levels, but the literature on this topic varies. This systematic review summarises the evidence regarding the use of digital noise display devices as the primary intervention to reduce noise levels in hospital wards. The authors searched CINAHL, MEDLINE and PubMed databases, as well as manually harvesting through the references. A total of 1110 articles were identified, of which eight were eligible for inclusion. Thematic analysis was used to synthesise the findings. The evidence demonstrated that digital noise display interventions could reduce noise levels in wards by 2–3 decibels and raise staff awareness of noise. However, there was a lack of evidence that this intervention changed staff behaviour regarding noise levels. Further research is required to explore the experiences of patients and staff to understand if and how these devices changed behaviour towards noise.

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