Association Between Quality and Duration of Sleep and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Nursing Students

Abstract

Background: Low quality of sleep is now becoming an epidemic among nursing population due to their busy work schedule and also many other factors may contribute to poor sleep among nursing students. As nursing students are the future of our healthcare system, therefore, this problem needs to be addressed in order to overcome the negative effects caused by poor sleep both on cognitive as well as physical health.

Objective: To determine the mean duration of sleep among undergraduate nursing students, to assess the quality of sleep using PSQI and its relationship with academic performance in terms of GPA, to identify factors associated with poor quality of sleep among undergraduate nursing students.

Methodology: An analytical cross-sectional study that was carried out in Peshawar. Data was collected from three nursing colleges in Peshawar such as Rufaidah Nursing College, Rahman College of Nursing and Northwest College of Nursing. A total of 293 students participated in the study. The study was approved from the IRB of Peshawar medical college. A written consent form was signed from every participant participant in the study.  Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index was used to identify duration and quality of sleep and self- reported GPA scale was used to find out GPA of the participants. Results: A total 293 participants participated in the study. The sample comprised of 60.8% males (n=178) and 38.6% females (n=113), with the majority of aged 18-2 years (66.9%). Most of the participants lived in hostels (59.7%), consumed caffeinated beverages (85%), and used electronic devices before sleeping (91.1%). Regarding academic performance, 74.8% had a GPA of 3.0 or above, and 70.6 % believed that sleep quality affects academic performance. Nursing students reported an average sleep duration of approximately 6.5hrs at night (C3_Ts: M=6.49, SD=1.25), which falls below the recommended 7-9hrs for adults. The sleep duration PSQI score (M= 1.05, SD=0.74) corresponds to the 6-7hrs category on the standardized scale and concurrently the global PSQI score (M=11.24, SD=2.54) indicates overall poor sleep quality across the sample, with all the participants scoring above the score of 5 on PSQI scale. All the nursing students participated in the study had poor sleep quality. Female nursing students had significantly poor sleep quality as compared to males (PSQI=10.78), Living arrangement, caffeine intake and screen use show no significant association with sleep quality but there existed a weak but significant relationship between poor sleep quality and academic performance (r=0.193, p= 0.001). Conclusion: In conclusion poor sleep quality has major effect on female students as compared to males and it has an association between poor GPA scores while other mediating factors such as lifestyle, caffeine consumption and environment show no significant relationship between sleep quality therefore nursing students needs to be aware of the harmful effects of poor sleep on the overall health of them and they are needed to be trained for sleep hygiene practices.