The Relationship Between Exam Anxiety Levels and Sleep Quality Among Nursing Students Studying in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Background and Objective This descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational study aimed to investigate the association between exam anxiety levels and sleep quality among nursing students in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).Methods Research data were collected from 250 students via Google Form using the FRIED-BEN Exam Anxiety Scale and Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) between November 12, 2025 and February 12, 2026. The data were analyzed using skewness–kurtosis coefficients, the Shapiro– Wilk test, t-tests, analysis of variance, Pearson correlation, and simple linear regression. Microsoft Excel 2021 was used for data organization and SPSS 27.0 for statistical analysis.Results Of the students, 51.6% were female and 48.4% were male. Furthermore, 39.6% were aged 18–20 years; 40.0%, 21–23 years; 18.0%, 24–26 years; and 2.4%, ≥27 years. The association between exam anxiety and sleep quality among nursing students varied according to sociodemographic data. A statistically significant and weak positive correlation was observed between exam anxiety levels and SHI scores, suggesting that sleep hygiene worsened as exam anxiety levels increased.Conclusions The research data indicated that nursing students experience exam anxiety, which affects their sleep quality. Therefore, it is recommended that guidance and counseling services be provided to them to reduce exam anxiety, improve sleep quality, and eliminate negative thoughts.