THE PREVALENCE OF INSOMNIA AMONG FEMALE MEDICAL STUDENTS OF ALMAAREFA COLLEGES IN RIYADH CITY -KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA 2015-2016

Background: Sleep plays an important role in every area of daily life. Insomnia can affect important aspects of your mind and body such as your mood, energy, ability to learn, memory, good judgment, reaction time and efficiency. Objective: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of insomnia among female medical students and find out its possible association with academic performance. Methods: 150 female medical students completed a self-administered questionnaire distributed in a cross-sectional descriptive study. Convenience sampling used for the study. SPSS was used for analysis. Result: This study showed that 74% of the participants were suffering from insomnia. Insomnia was 85% among those who had the medical condition than those who did not. 77% of the participant who is in level 7 and more had insomnia while 78% of the insomniac students were between 21-23 years old. Insomnia occurred in 75% with GPA of 3 or more in the preparatory year and in the current level (P-value = 0.613). These results were statistically insignificant. 74% of insomniac students spend 3-4 hours during weekdays in studying and that increased by 79% before exams to spend more than 6 hours and this finding was on the borderline significant (P value = 0.0569). Conclusion: This study showed a significant relationship between insomnia and studying hours in exam weekdays, Academic performance in this study did not show relationship with insomnia, Insomnia was statistically associated with GPA more than 3 out of 4 at the time of the study and in preparatory year and the presence of medical condition was statistically associated with insomnia