Sleep quality and sleep associated problems in female pharmacy students

Abstract

Background: Sleep is an essential element for adolescent mental and physical growth and development, but today's young adolescents are deprived of this. Earlier studies in Europe and America showed pitiable sleep quality of young college students, which affect their academic growth. However, as per our literature search there is a lack of such studies in Indian context especially, within pharmacy education. Objective: The present study was designed to investigate the interrelation between the demographic characteristics, life-style, and academic progress with sleep quality and sleep problems along with daytime and nighttime habits in young female pharmacy students of India. Materials and Methods: Questionnaire on sleep and daytime habits (QS and DH) was prepared. Our sample survey consists of 226 female pharmacy students of Banasthali University. QS and DH of multiple choice type, covered demographic characteristic (3 questions) sleep and daytime habits (25 questions), life-style and academic progress (3 questions), and one question of course curriculum. Parameters were co-related by point scale method using the SPSS 16.0 software. Results: Data derived and analyze from survey illustrated that quality of sleep was as: Excellent - 20.4%, good - 38.5%, satisfactory - 35.8%, poor - 4%, and very poor - 1.3% of participants. Living condition ( ρ =0.168, P =0.011), academic progress ( ρ =0.151, P=0.023), leisure activity ( ρ =0.133, P ρ =0.160, P=0.016) were significantly correlated with sleep quality. In addition, daytime sleepiness caused a significant problem for students and created a number of sleep disorders. Nevertheless, Sleep quality was not associated with age, body mass index, and coffee in the late evening. Conclusion: Study reported that sleep associated problems were common complaints in female pharmacy students.