IMPACT OF SLEEP HABITS ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG FOURTH-YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS AT TAIBAH UNIVERSITY

Background: Medical education is marked by stressful events, in which sleep-wake habit of the students might play a role in their academic performance. Objectives: The study aimed to identify the sleep-wake habit of 4th year medical students at Taibah College of Medicine, examine the association between sleep habit variables and the academic performance of the studied students in term of their grade point average (GPA) and Comparison of sleep-wake pattern between male and female students Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Taibah College of medicine, Madinah, Saudi Arabia. The study included all 4th year medical students registered during the study year 2016/17. A self-administered questionnaire was completed and returned back by 126 students. The questionnaire included socio-demographic, lifestyle factors, study related and academic performance data in terms of Grade Point Averages (GPA), and sleep-wake habit variables. Results: The response rate was 75.4% (126/167). The studied students were more females (54 %) , single (87.3%), BMI 2 cups per day (39.9%). The students, however, were less in smoking habit (5.6%), and intake of soda cans and chocolate bars. The mean GPA of the studied students was 3.6 ± 1.2. With the exception of weekdays rise time, napping and quality of sleep, other studied sleep-wake variables showed no statistically significant differences between male and female students. Excellent and very good academic performance was significantly higher among female students reported to wake up between 6:00 and 7:00 am (84.8%) and to sleep less than 6 hours (57.6%) during weekdays. Similar findings were detected among male students, although not significant. Increasing excellent performance was significantly associated with weekday rise time at 6-7:00 am, particularly among females (OR= 3.10; 95% CI= 1.01-10.3). Poor sleep quality, however, was significantly associated with decreasing excellent performance with an OR of 0.75 (95% CI= 0.30-0.99). Conclusions: The study revealed a great role of sleep-wake pattern of the studied 4th year medical students and their academic performance. More studies are needed at the whole faculty and even University level. Key words: Academic performance, Sleep disorders, Sleep quality, Medical students, Saudi Arabi