Assessment of Sleeping Disorders, Characteristics, and Sleeping Medication Use Among Pharmacy Students in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Quantitative Study.

Abstract

BACKGROUND Insomnia is a growing problem, especially among university students, and is associated with sleep disorders, poor academic performance, and quality of sleep. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of insomnia sleeping characteristics, managing techniques, and attitudes toward sleeping pill usage among pharmacy students. MATERIAL AND METHODS A cross-sectional web-based study was conducted among pharmacy students of King Saud University, College of Pharmacy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between February and March 2023. SPSS version 26 was used for data analysis. A P value of <0.05 and was considered statistically significant. RESULTS In this study, 61.7% (n=108) of the students' slept an average of 6-10 h and 35.4% (n=62) slept an average of 6 h. Regarding sleeping patterns, nearly two-thirds (n=112, 64%) of the students had day and night sleeping patterns while more than one-third (n=63, 36%) had only night sleeping patterns. In this study, 2.9% (n=5) of the students had severe clinical insomnia, while 21.7% (n=38) reported moderately severe clinical insomnia, 44% (n=77) of them had subthreshold insomnia, and 31.4% (n= 55) had no clinically significant insomnia. The mean scores of the insomnia severity index were significantly related to the usage of stimulants (P=0.048), average hours of sleep (P=0.0001), and average minutes needed to fall asleep (P=0.0001). CONCLUSIONS The current findings demonstrated varying levels of insomnia among students, yet few students used sleeping pills.