Dados do Trabalho

Título

SLEEP PATTERN, CELLPHONE USE AND GRADE POINT AVERAGE IN SÃO PAULO MEDICAL STUDENTS.

Introdução

Sleep problems such as insomnia and insufficient sleep syndrome are common in the general population, however, medical students are a vulnerable group to present poor sleep quality. Factors that influences sleep quality are intense routines and night time cellphone use. Cellphone has been increasingly used as a teaching tool, but its addictive content, and the emission of blue light can interfere with the modulation of sleep-wake rhythm. Such factors can generate excessive daytime sleepiness, affect memory consolidation and cognitive functioning in students

Objetivo

To verify sleep quality, correlating it with cellphone use, insomnia, and academic performance in medical students

Métodos

Observational and cross-sectional study. Data was collected using Google Forms. The participants responded to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Insomnia Severity Index, and provided their age, grade point average, cellphone use during the day, and in bed

Resultados

In total, there were 124 medical students. The mean age of participants was 23.1 years old (SD = 4.0). Poor sleep quality (PSQI < 5) was reported by 92 participants (74.2%). Students in this group were older (M = 23.6, SD = 4.32) than those in the Good sleep quality group (M = 21.5, SD = 2.17) (t(106.3) = 3.495, p < .001, 95% CI: 0.897–3.25). Poor sleepers also scored higher on ISI (M = 10.2, SD = 4.93) than Good sleepers (M = 4.03, SD = 3.67) (t(72.4) = 7.44, p < .001, 95% CI: 4.51–7.80, d = 1.42). The presence of poor sleep quality was associated with cellphone use in bed (χ2(4) = 13.87, p < .01). However, the Mantel-Haenszel test was not significant (χ2(1) = 0.119, p = .73), indicating that increased time using cellphone in bed was not related with poor sleep quality. There was no significant variation in GPA of poor and good sleepers

Conclusões

We observed that older students are more vulnerable to poor sleep, maybe due to higher demand. Poor sleepers are more susceptible to develop maladaptative behaviors regarding sleep and consequently more serious insomnia. Finally, we observed that the use of cellphone relates to sleep quality but not the time used. The good sleepers use the cell phone approximately 20-30 minutes and poor sleepers use it less than 10 minutes or greater than 40 minutes. This may seem paradoxical, but is psychophysiologically explained: poor sleepers trying to improve their sleep may limit their time of use and, on the other hand, the excessive time of use, could be the cause of the poor sleep

Palavras-chave

Insomnia;cellphone;academic performance