CAUSES OF INSOMNIA AND ITS EFFECTS ON DAY TO DAY ACTIVITIES OF REHMAN MEDICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of this research is to identify the magnitude of self-reported insomnia in medical student in Rehman Medical College, Peshawar; to characterize sleeping habits of medical students; to identify the basic causes of insomnia and to determine how subjective sleep quality affects their day to day activities.     Material & Methods: It was a cross sectional survey conducted at Rehman Medical College Peshawar. A total number of 200 students from both 1^st year and 2^nd year MBBS were enrolled. Participants completed a self-reported questionnaire. The variables of questionnaire were derived from National Sleep Foundation (USA). Data were entered in MS Excel and Data analysis was done on SPSS version 15 for descriptive statistics.

Results: Response rate was 81.5%, amongst them 65.0% were day scholars while 35.0% were boarders; 22 students were found insomniac according to the National Sleep Foundation (USA) criteria for adult sleep, of these 13 insomniacs were Day scholars and 9 were boarders. Major causes for decreased sleep among the insomniac students were, Stress 14 (73.68%), Studies 14 (73.68%), Exams 13 (68.42%), load shedding 11 (57.89%), and disturbing events around them 6 (31.57%). A sizable number of students, 17 (80.95%) believed that their performance was affected because of the sleep disturbance; also 17 (80.95%) students got irritated due to lack of sleep, 15 (71.42%) students thought that their concentration and retention of lessons in classrooms was greatly affected, 14 (66.67%) students thought that their studies and diet got affected due to less sleep, 13 (61.90%) felt that their personal appearance got affected, 12 (57.14%) students observed that their punctuality was affected by decreased sleep, whereas 7 (33.33%) mentioned that their relationship with friends and family got affected due to decreased sleep.

Conclusion: Insomnia is fairly common among medical students in Rehman Medical College and is associated with stress, exam tension, load shedding, and medical studies. The preliminary data on insomnia categorizes student sleep disturbance as day scholars and borderline. The study provides data on causes and effect of insomnia, which may be used to guide sleep hygiene promotion and intervention among college students.