Quality of sleep, circadian preference and healthy life style in university students
Authors:
D. Janečková; D. Dostál; A. Plháková
Authors‘ workplace:
Vedoucí: PhDr. Matúš Šucha, Ph. D.
; Děkan: doc. PhDr. Jiří Lach, Ph. D.
; Katedra psychologie
; Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého, Olomouc
Published in:
Prakt. Lék. 2013; 93(3): 114-120
Category:
Of different specialties
Overview
Aim.
The study was aimed at exploring the differences in quality of sleep, circadian preference, depression, and Cloninger’s temperament dimensions in students from the medical and philosophical faculties. Both groups were also compared in the following behaviours connected with healthy life style: sports activities, cigarette smoking, coffee consumption, frequency of drinking alcohol, time spent on the computer during the week and at the weekend.
Methods.
The research sample consisted of 66 students from the Faculty of Medicine and 74 students from Philosophical faculty of Palacký University in Olomouc who were given the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), the Morningness-eveningness questionnaire (MEQ), the Beck depression index-II (BDI-II), and Cloninger’s Temperament and character inventory revised (TCI-R). Certain health-related behaviours of participants were also questioned. The data were processed by standard methods of descriptive, parametric, and nonparametric statistics (Levene’s test, t-test for two independent samples, one sample t-test, Cohen’s d, U-test).
Results.
Medical students have significantly shorter sleep latency and sleep duration than philosophical faculty students (both p < 0.05). They also less often suffer from sleep disorders (p < 0.05), drink alcohol less (p < 0.001), have lower coffee consumption (p < 0.05) and spend significantly less time on the computer both during the week and at weekends. 39% of all participants scored above 5 on the Pittsburgh sleep quality index which might signalize sleep disorder. Philosophical faculty students scored significantly higher than medical students on the TCI-R temperament scale of Novelty Seeking (p < 0.001). No differences were found in depression between the two groups. The majority of respondents (72%) reported no smoking and 60% claimed to do regular sporting excersise (at least once a week).
Conclusion.
Medical students have shorter sleep latency and sleep duration, get up earlier, and less often suffer from sleep disorders in comparison with philosophical faculty students. They have also lower coffee consumption, lower frequency of alcohol consumption, and spend less time on the computer.
Keywords:
quality of sleep – sleep debt – circadian preference – healthy life style – temperament
Sources
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Labels
General practitioner for children and adolescents General practitioner for adultsArticle was published in
General Practitioner
2013 Issue 3
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