Assessment of Sleep Hygiene among Medical Students at Gadag District, Karnataka

• Author Details:   
• Ananthachari KR
• Rekha Sonavane

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Introduction: Sleep hygiene has been defined as those behaviours that are believed to promote improved quantity and quality of sleep. College student’s especially medical students are at most risk to sleep disturbances as it decreases the overall academic performance and disturbs the health and mood of the individual.
Objectives: to assess the sleep hygiene and factors influencing it among medical students at Gadag Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), Gadag, Karnataka.
Materials and Method: Cross-sectional study was conducted from 1^st to 30^th April 2017 among all medical students who are willing and consented to participate in the study at GIMS, Gadag, Karnataka. Validated Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire was used to assess the sleep hygiene and various factors influencing the sleep disturbances
Results: 293 consented to participate in the study of which 164(65.99%) were males & 129(44.01%) were females. Mean age of the study participants was 19.2+ 1.151 years. Of the 293 students, (60.06%) 176 had scored less than 5 indicating “good” sleep while (39.93%) 117 scored more than equal to 5 indicating “poor” sleep. Majority of them 223(76.1%) spent less than 8hrs in bed. Studying and indulging in assignments late into the night was statistically associated with sleep hygiene. There was no gender, urban & rural differences between maintenance of sleep hygiene among medical students.
Conclusion: significant proportion of medical students (39.9%) had bad sleep hygiene and studying late into the night was implicated in the disturbance of sleep hygiene.

Keywords: Sleep hygiene, Medical students, Sleep disturbances