ABSTRACT
Background: Alertness and ability to perform vary as functions of homeostatic factors such as sleep duration, sleep quality, and time awake. As far as medical students are concerned, alertness during the lectures is important due to their vast curriculum, and their alertness aids in the development of better doctors in their future. Though the importance of sleep is known, there is scarcity of studies on how adequate sleep among medical students affects their alertness during lecture classes. The aim was to study effect of sleep duration on alertness among medical students from a tertiary care hospital in Thrissur district, Kerala.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students and alertness was assessed following afternoon lecture classes, using a Stanford sleepiness scale questionnaire. The sample size was calculated with a formula 4PQ/d2 and total 202 undergraduate students were included. The data regarding overnight sleep duration and post lunch nap was also collected using a semi-structured questionnaire.Results: Based on stanford sleepiness scale 66.3% of students were alert and responsive, 29.2% were not alert and only 4.5% of students were sleepy following afternoon lecture classes. Out of total 202 undergraduate students 43.6% of them had poor overnight sleep and only 32.7% had taken post lunch nap. There was a statistically significant association between alertness and post lunch nap (p=0.01).Conclusions: Those students who had good overnight sleep and post lunch nap had better alertness during lecture classes.
ABSTRACT
Background: The prevalence of diabetes is increasing all over the world and it is associated with different genetic factors as well as environmental factors. The increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes among young people has led to an increase in number of pregnancies with this complication. As the incidence of diabetes is more in Kerala, the present study was undertaken to compare the socio-demographic determinants among pregnant mothers with normal gestation and mothers with GDM.Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was carried out and sample size was calculated using the formulae of (Z? + Z?) 2 × 2 × P × Q/d2. The calculated sample size was 108 and consecutive sampling technique was used for data collection. A semi-structured questionnaire containing socio-demographic and obstetrics details were used as a study tool and an interview schedule was used for data collection.Results: Out of total 111 postnatal mothers, majority 80 (72.1%) belongs to the age group of 21-30 years, and more than half 64(57.66%) of mothers belongs to Hindu religion. When the socio-demographic and obstetrics details of mothers were compared among GDM and normal mothers it was found that there was statistically significant difference between religion, family history of diabetes and occurrence of GDM (p=0.001). Among obstetric details history of abortion, BMI of mothers and birth weight show statistically significant difference among two groups (p<0.001).Conclusions: The study reveals that the socio demographic factors and obstetric factors influence the occurrence of GDM.