The characteristics of sleep habits of slovenian university students during COVID-19 epidemic: Preliminary results of a twowave study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: It is well known that university students are at high risk for developing sleep problems due to the unique challenges of early adulthood. The COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying infection control measures, including university closures and home schooling, imposed additional challenges to healthy sleep of university students around the world. The aim of our study was to evaluate the characteristics of Slovenian students' sleep habits during the first and second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Slovenia. We also aimed to investigate the possible role of sleep hygiene in predicting the sleep quality of students during the epidemic. Method(s) This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted during the first wave of the epidemic in Slovenia (spring 2020) and one year later, when the epidemic was declared for the second time (spring 2021). Slovenian university students responded to sleeprelated, change-specific questions in an online survey. Result(s) 541 participants (80% women) responded to the survey in the first wave and 719 (81% women) in the second wave. Our preliminary results show that most students slept within the recommended time frame of at least 7 h per night during both the first (73.2%) and second wave (63.8%), and most students reported sleeping more or the same amount of time during the epidemic compared to the preepidemic period. On the other hand, sleep quality worsened for a large proportion of participants during the first (37.2%) and second wave (41%), and many experienced less consistent sleep-wake cycles during both the first (48.6%) and second wave (52.1%) compared with the pre-epidemic period. Multiple regression analyses revealed that sleep hygiene predicted overall sleep quality during the epidemic in both waves, even after controlling for relevant variables that might affect sleep (demographic variables, presence or absence of physical illness or mental disorders, stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms). Conclusion(s) Our data confirm evidence of sleep changes previously observed in other studies during the pandemic and demonstrate the vulnerability of university students to decreased sleep quality and regularity during the COVID-19 epidemic. Our preliminary results also suggest the potential role of sleep hygiene in predicting sleep quality across the pandemic waves.