A multicentre point prevalence study of nocturnal hours awake and enteral pharmacological sleep aids in patients admitted to Australian and New Zealand intensive care units.

Objective: Critically ill patients suffer disrupted sleep. Hypnotic medications may improve sleep; however, local epidemiological data regarding the amount of nocturnal time awake and the use of such medications is needed.

Design: Point prevalence study.

Communication with bereaved family members after death in the ICU: the CATHARTIC randomised clinical trial.

It is uncertain whether psychological distress in the family members of patients who die during an intensive care unit (ICU) admission may be improved by bereavement interventions. In this trial, relatives' symptoms of anxiety and depression after 6 months were measured when allocated to three commonly used bereavement follow-up strategies. Single-centre, randomised, three parallel-group trial.

Sleep during and following critical illness: A narrative review.

Sleep is a complex process influenced by biological and environmental factors. Disturbances of sleep quantity and quality occur frequently in the critically ill and remain prevalent in survivors for at least 12 mo. Sleep disturbances are associated with adverse outcomes across multiple organ systems but are most strongly linked to delirium and cognitive impairment.

Aminophylline in bradyasystolic cardiac arrest.

A short cut review was carried out to establish whether aminophylline improved return of spontaneous circulation rates and eventual outcome in bradyasystolic cardiac arrest. A total of 1154 papers were found using the reported searches, of which four presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these four papers are summarised in table 4.