ArticleChronobiology international2025
Light levels in a modern intensive care unit: Impact of time of year, window directionality, and outdoor light levels.
Article in Chronobiology international, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Recent Evidence on Factors and Potential Interventions Affecting Patient Sleep in Inpatient and Hospital Settings.Current psychiatry reports · 2026Review
- Lymph node dissection, pain, and psychological factors: association with sleep quality during the perioperative period in oral cancer patients.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Article
- Circadian Neurology.Continuum (Minneapolis, Minn.) · 2026Review
- High-resolution monitoring reveals fragmented 24-hour light exposure in intensive care units.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Observational
- Guidelines for the construction and management of critical care medicine in China (2025 Edition).Journal of intensive medicine · 2026Article
- Determinants of intensive care unit light exposure: an observational cohort study of patient, temporal, and structural factors.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Observational
- Optimizing Sleep Hygiene in the Hospital Environment.Sleep medicine clinics · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The intensive care unit (ICU) environment is designed for the care of acutely ill patients, with lighting conditions reflecting the needs of the busy clinical setting. Earlier ICU studies suggested that daytime and nighttime light levels were misaligned with those required for circadian rhythm entrainment, which can impact patient sleep-wake cycles and recovery from critical illness. In this investigation in San Diego, California, a coastal US city with over 260 days of sunshine annually, we performed a detailed evaluation of light levels in a contemporary academic medical-surgical ICU constructed in 2016, which features modern lighting and floor-to-ceiling windows in each of the 24 rooms. Using light meters mounted on poles and located directly behind the head of each patient's bed, our analysis of nearly 90,000 hours of data revealed daytime ICU light levels consistently lower than 150 lx, similar to studies in older ICUs and many magnitudes lower than outdoor levels at identical times. Hence, despite the modern design, we found that little to no light from the ~100 ft
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.