Prevalence of Sleep Disorders among Medical Students of Babol University of Medical Sciences, Iran, 2013

Medical students are more susceptible to sleep disorders than other students. Sleep disorders can lead to academic failure and decrease in performance of students. Sleep deprivation can also produce somatic and psychologic disorders. This study was performed to assess the prevalence of sleep disorders among medical students of Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran. This cross-sectional study was performed on 153 medical students of Babol University of Medical Sciences. They were selected randomly. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used for data gathering and the questionnaires were filled out by the students in a self- reported manner. This questionnaire assesses the personal attitude about sleep quality in 4 weeks ago. Total score ranges from 0 to 21 and the score ≥ 6 means sleep disorder. Sleep duration of medical students was 5.7±0.9 hours and 78.8% of medical students had bad quality of sleep. Sleep duration had significant relationship with the student's age (p=0.000) and their academic level (p=0.039), with increasing the age and academic level especially in clinical courses, sleep duration decreased significantly. 86.9% of students had delay in sleep onset and interrupted sleep. The abnormality of morning performance due to sleep disorder was seen in 61.8% of students. Majority of students had inappropriate sleep quality and the least sleep duration belong to interns among the medical students. The effective sleep duration in majority of medical students was less than 6 hours.