Academic stress and sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic among medical students from a university of Peru

Abstract

Introduction: Sleep quality is an important factor for both the physical and mental health of medical students. Objective: To evaluate the association between academic stress and sleep quality among medical students enrolled in a university of Lima (Peru) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: Analytical cross-sectional study carried out in 410 medical students from the School of Human Medicine of Universidad Ricardo Palma, who, in October and November 2020, were administered the Spanish version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the SISCO SV-21 Academic Stress Inventory, and a sociodemographic and habits questionnaire via Google Forms. Bivariate and multivariate analyzes were performed to identify factors associated with poor sleep quality and academic stress, using prevalence ratios (PR) with a 95% confidence interval and a significance level of p≤0.05. Results: 97.32% of students presented with “academic stress” and 90.48% had “poor quality of sleep”. Factors associated with “poor quality of sleep” were “high levels of academic stress” (aPR: 2.433; 95%CI: 1.619-3.657; p=0.000), “not living with relatives” (aPR: 1.264; 95%CI: 1.107-1.443; p=0.001), and “working in addition to studying” (aPR: 1.106; 95%CI: 1.012-1.209; p=0.026). Additionally, “female biological sex” (aPR: 1.178; 95%CI: 1.090-1.273; p=0.000) and “place of birth Lima” (aPR: 0.929; 95%CI: 0.882-0.979; p=0.006) were significantly associated with “academic stress.” Conclusion: Having high levels of academic stress, not living with relatives, and working in addition to studying were factors associated with poor sleep quality among the study population during the COVID-19 pandemic.