Sleep quality and daytime sleepiness in university students: prevalence and association with social determinants

Abstract

Introduction: Changes in the Sleep/Wake Cycle (SWC) of university students can have consequences on physical, mental and social health. In addition, some behaviors adopted at this stage may be associated with SWC impairment. Objective: Therefore, this study aims to identify which factors of social determinants of health (SDH) are associated with poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in university students. Method: This is a cross-sectional study that included 298 university students, aged between 18 and 35 years; 73.2% of the students were females and from the countryside of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Data were collected from the following questionnaires: Health and Sleep, Munich Chronotype Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Epworth Sleepiness Scale. To assess the association of SDH with poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness, Poisson Regression with robust variance was performed. Result: The prevalence of poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness among the university students was 79.2% and 51.3%, respectively. Between the intermediate determinants of health, a higher prevalence rate of poor sleep quality was observed in students who reported health problems in the previous month (18.4%), smoked (23.5%), drank stimulating beverages close to bedtime (25.8%) and those who used electronic devices before bedtime during the week (18.4%) when compared to those who did not have these behaviors. Regarding excessive daytime sleepiness, students who justified bedtime during the week and wake-up time at the weekend because of the academic demand showed, respectively, 27% and 34% lower prevalence of EDS than the group that did not have these behaviors. Conclusions: The high prevalence of poor sleep quality and EDS observed among university students was associated to biological factors and most of them, behavioral factors.

Avaliação da qualidade de sono e sonolência diurna em estudantes da medicina: Sua prevalência com o passar do curso

“…Em adição as dificuldades associadas as altas demandas da vida universitária, os jovens também são afetados frequentemente pelo consumo excessivo de substâncias estimuladoras e psicoativas, tais como café, álcool e tabaco, além da má alimentação e do sedentarismo. O uso de aparelhos eletrônicos após as 21 horas, dispositivos que emitem luz artificial e suprimem a secreção de melatonina, reduzindo a sonolência noturna, também é visto como um fator agravante (Araújo et al, 2021).…”