Sleep Patterns of Medical Students

Abstract

Objectives: To identify sleep patterns of medical students and determinethe relationship between sleep habits and academic performance. Background: Humanbeings adopt three different sleeping patterns; monophasic, biphasic and polyphasic. Sleepallows synaptic molding to return by developing faster memory union. When such memoryprocessing is not present, memory keeping is reduced which can have an adverse effecton the academic performance of students. Professional education in the field of medicinerequires learning a greater amount and variety of syllabi to practice as a satisfactory medicalgraduate. Among medical students, the burden of the extensive curriculum often results inthe development of non-recuperative sleeping patterns, which can, in turn, affect their overallacademic performance. This study strives to deduce the sleeping patterns of students and theconnection between those sleeping patterns and academic performance. Study Design: Across-sectional questionnaire based survey. Setting: Jinnah Medical & Dental College, Karachi.Period: 2013. Methods: Sleep patterns of 347 medical students from year 1 -4. The resultsof the midterm examinations were cross-tabulated with the sleep patterns to determine therelationship between them. Results: Our study showed that out of 347 medical students, 38.9%(n=135) had monophasic, 46.7% (n=162) had biphasic and 14.4% (n=50) had a polyphasicsleep pattern. 67.4% of monophasics, 87.0% of biphasics and 66.0% of polyphasics passedtheir midterm examination. Conclusion: Biphasic students performed the best in their midtermexaminations. This is in agreement with scientific proof that sleeping in two phases matchesthe body’s instinctive circadian rhythm, hormonal regulation and memory creation. These twophases are sleeping once at night and having one shorter period during the day. Professionalcolleges should advise and educate students in order to encourage them to acquire adequatesleep through appropriate sleeping patterns by which they may support their academic learning.

Calidad de sueño y aprendizaje en estudiantes de medicina: Revisión narrativa

“…Se ha asociado diversos aspectos de calidad, cantidad y patrones de sueño al rendimiento académico en estudiantes de medicina (43,59,60) . BaHammam (61) , utilizando el promedio global (GPA) categorizado como "excelente" o "promedio", encontró asociación entre más horas de sueño y acostarse temprano en días de clase y rendimiento "excelente".…”