Investigation of Relationship between Sleep Quality and Stress, Anxiety and Depression among Students in the Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep quality and stress, anxiety and depression among students in the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Shoushtar. This study was a descriptive and analytical research that 193 out of 530 students from systematic random sampling were selected.  Additionally, two questionnaires were utilized: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality (PSQI) questionnaire and (DASS-21) was used for depression, anxiety, stress, as well as data analysis was performed by chi-square and Pearson correlation coefficient in the statistical program SPSS21. Results showed afterwards that among all population 78.8% students suffered from poor sleep quality; 10.4% with severe stress, and 10.9% of severe anxiety and 8.3% had severe depression.  The results showed the relationship between sleep quality and stress was statistically significant (P<0.05). Moreover, no significant association was found between sleep quality and depression (P>0.05). Accordingly, due to the high percentage of poor sleep quality and significant relationship with stress and anxiety, improving sleep quality has a proper planning for students. It is also planned to eliminate stress, anxiety and depression and psychological intervention aimed at improving students' mental health, therefore, it can ultimately improve the quality of their sleep that should be considered by the university authorities.