Impact of sleep patterns on the academic performance of medical students of College of Medicine, University of Nigeria

Background: Sleep is necessary for physical and cognitive health; these functions are susceptible to be impaired by sleep deprivation. This study evaluated the sleep patterns of the medical students and the impact they have on their academic performance. Materials and Methods: One hundred and ninety-three third-year medical students (122 males and 73 females) participated in the study. The students’ sleep patterns were obtained through a structured questionnaire which was divided into two sections: section 1 was used to obtain the students’ demographic data, and section 2 was used to determine the students’ sleep durations, latency, and qualities. Data on their academic performance were obtained from the results of their second-year MBBS professional examination. Descriptive analysis was done and associations between academic performance and the variables were determined using Student’s t-test, χ2 tests, and Spearman’s correlation test. Results: Fifty-nine percent of the students were sleep-deprived and 41% slept for 6 h or more, 42% had sleep latency of less than 10 min, and 60% frequently or sometimes wakeup at night, while 44.1% felt sleepy during school hours. The academic performance correlated positively with sleep duration (P \u003c 0.001), whereas the correlation with sleep latency and quality was negative. The students who were sleep-deprived had poor academic performance and those with short sleep latency had a better academic performance. Conclusion: Poor sleep duration, long sleep latency, and poor sleep qualities negatively affected the academic performance of the students.