Abstract

Background: Sleep is a fundamental biological mechanism that is essential for vital functions, good health, and overall quality of life. Medical students are exposed to a high level of pressure due to their high academic demands that could lead to sleep problems. However, such information is lacking for students of health faculties’ in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our study aimed to fill in this gap by determining the prevalence of sleep deprivation and daytime sleepiness among all the health faculties’ students at King Abdulaziz University (KAU).
Methods: The cross-sectional study was done at KAU in June 2019 by using online questionnaires through google forms. A sample size of 1,151 undergraduate students from all health faculties’ (Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, and Applied medical science). Students filled a questionnaire including demographics, Pittsburgh sleep quality index, and Epworth sleepiness scale.
Results: We found that 88.4% of the students have poor sleep quality with a mean score of 8.87 ± 3.53. As for ESS, 32% were indicated to have excessive daytime sleepiness with a mean score of 8.30 ± 4.95. Students also acquired an average of 5.26 hours of sleep each night and an average sleep efficiency of 85.14%.
Conclusion: Based on our study findings, sleep deprivation, poor sleep quality, and excessive daytime sleepiness is common among health faculties’ students. A reasonable approach to tackle this issue could be to ensure proper education on sleep hygiene and developing strategies to enhance studying habits and to improve the quality of sleep.

Key words: Sleep, Students, Jeddah, Prevalence, Health care.