Relationship of sleep hygiene awareness, sleep hygiene practices, and sleep quality in university students

College students are known for their variable sleep schedules. Such schedules, along with other common student practices (eg, alcohol and caffeine con-sumption), are associated with poor sleep hygiene. Researchers have demon-strated in clinical populations that improving sleep hygiene knowledge and practices is an effective treatment for insomnia. However, researchers who have examined relationships between sleep hygiene and practices in nonclin-ical samples and overall sleep quality have produced inconsistent findings, perhaps because of questionable measures. In this study, the authors used psychometrically sound instruments to examine these variables and to counter the shortcomings in previous investigations. Their findings suggest that knowledge of sleep hygiene is related to sleep practices, which, in turn, is related to overall sleep quality. The data from their regression modeling indi-cated that variable sleep schedules, going to bed thirsty, environmental noise, and worrying while falling asleep contribute to poor sleep quality. Index Terms: habits, hygiene, quality, sleep, student