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The Effect of Sleeping Pattern on the Academic Performance of Undergraduate Medical Students at Ajman University of Science and Technology

Hala Hamed, Amani Miskey, Razan Alkurd, Zena Ghazal, Razan Sami, Nageed Abduljaleel, and Moayad Shahwan

Sleeping is a natural repetitive state of rest for the mind and body which is essential to life. Sufficient sleep is extremely important for one’s mental and physical health. But sleep loss is a remarkable problem in modern society. The objective of this study was designed to encourage students to seek healthier sleep habits, by using academic success as indicator. It was a cross sectional study conducted among different studying levels of AUST undergraduate medical students during February 2015 to April 2015. Inclusive of all 200 registered medical students was selected for this study. A standard questionnaire that contained questions on demography, sleep habits, academic performance and ideal sleep was used to collect data. Out of 200 students, 190 were responded, giving a response rate of 95% where 74% were female and 19% resided in-campus. Including weekdays and weekends averagely, 48% respondents slept for 6-8 hours, 22% for <6 hrs and 30% slept for >8 hrs. An average of 35% respondents had in-frequent day-nap, 23% frequent and 19% had no day-nap at all. Respondents who slept >6 hrs were observed to have significantly higher academic performance. It is concluded that, people need to understand the role of sleep and have to take adequate sleep of 6-8 hours per day for health and wellbeing.