A Study on Association between Sleep Habits and Academic Performance among Medical Undergraduates in Maharaja Agrasen Medical College Agroha.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Good quality and adequate amount of sleepis necessary for being healthy. Medical students are proneto more stress due to their academic demands. The sleepamong students is characterized by inadequate sleeping hours,delayed sleep onset, and mid day nap. Current research aimedto study sleep habits among medical students and to findrelationship between sleep habits and stress with academicperformance of students.Material and Methods: This cross–sectional study wascarried out among 139 medical students of third semester,seventh semester and interns enrolled at Maharaja AgrasenMedical College, Agroha (Dist. Hisar), Haryana. Primarytool in this study was a predesigned and semi-structuredquestionnaire. Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) was used toassess daytime sleepiness. Collected data was analysed usingfrequencies, percentages and chi square test.Results: Out of 139 students, 38.8% were considered tohave excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS score >10). Femalestudents (43.1%) were found to have more abnormal EDS scoreas compare to male students(35.1%). Out of total, 70 studentssecured marks between 60-70 percent in which maximumnumber of students (61.42%) were stress free during examsand 54% had sleep duration of 7-10 hours. Good health wasfound to be strongly significant with academic performanceof the students. Duration of study hours was found to besignificant with academic performance of students. Delayedsleep onset was found to be more in female students (55%).Mid day nap was found in 76.25% of students.Conclusion: The negative effects of sleep difficulties havebeen well documented. EDS was more in female students.Also, good health had significant association with academicperformance so the knowledge of importance of good qualityand adequate amount of sleep and its impact on health shouldbe emphasized and translated into practice.