Evaluation of sleep and daytime sleepiness in Medical students at a public university

ABSTRACT Introduction: Quality sleep is essential for consolidating cognition, memory and learning. Its deprivation tends to generate negative effects on the knowledge acquisition process, as well as adverse effects on health. Medical students tend to experience various sleep disorders, due to the high demand of the course and the heavy workload. Objective: To evaluate the quality of sleep and the presence of excessive daytime sleepiness in medical students at Universidade Federal da Bahia and correlate sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness with the current academic semester and student performance. Method: This is an observational, cross-sectional, quantitative study, based on data collection through a questionnaire, of which research participants comprised 517 medical students regularly enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia (FMB) of Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Salvador - Bahia, attending from the 1st to the 8th semesters. A questionnaire containing a sociodemographic profile and two self-administered questionnaires, validated and adapted into Portuguese, were applied to assess sleep quality and daytime sleepiness in a sample stratified by semesters in 8 groups: 1st semester (n-61), 2nd semester (n-67), 3rd semester (n-60), 4th semester (n-64), 5th semester (n-56), 6th semester (n-70), 7th semester (n-67), and 8th semester (n-65). The software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used for the statistical analysis. Results: Poor sleep quality (IQSP > 5) was found in 84.1% of the research participants and was associated with a lower performance coefficient. Excessive daytime sleepiness was present in 65.4% of those evaluated. There was no statistically significant difference in the comparison between the scores on the IQSP® and ESSE scales with the academic semester attended. An association was observed between excessive daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality, female gender and worse academic performance. Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of sleep disorders among medical students.