Abstract
Background: Sleep is a natural need and a biological necessity for human beings (5) and is significant for the maintenance of favorable physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Sleep deprivation may have serious health consequences, and it is becoming more common in both developing and developed societies ranging from 22% to 65% of the general population. University students reported to have two times more difficulty in sleep in comparison to the general population. Aim: Determine the sleep patterns and predictors of disturbed sleep among medical students at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. A total of 273 medical students were invited to respond to the questionnaire about the association between sleep disturbance and academic performance, by use of demographic questions and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index.
Results: In this study, 279 responses were collected in response to our questionnaire. Females represented 77.4% of total sample and 56.6% of the participants were aged between 20-22 years. 63.8% of the students had poor sleep quality. Females had a higher risk of poor sleep than men by 1.54 times where 66.2% of female had poor sleep compared with 55.6% of male students (P=0.123). We noticed that younger participants were found to have a higher prevalence of poor quality sleep where 73.7% of 18-19 year olds had poor quality of sleep compared with 56.3% of those who were older than 25 years (RR:2.17, 95 % CI: 0.52:9.01). Moreover, we found that poor quality of sleep was slightly higher in those who did not take naps during the day (68.7% compared with 59.5%) with a higher risk of 1.5 times more however, this is not significant (P=0.109). Consuming coffee or caffeinated drinks did not affect the quality of sleep significantly (P=0.689) however, we found that the prevalence of poor quality of sleep increases with an increase in coffee consumption.
Conclusion: We found that almost two third of the medical students at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia experienced poor quality sleep. Female, younger students, with low incomes, higher GPA, who consumed caffeinated drinks and did not take naps during the day were associated with a high prevalence of poor sleep.