Effect of sleep on academic performance among male and female medical students

Abstract

Background: Sleep is an active, repetitive, and reversible behavior serving functions such as repair and growth, learning or memory consolidation, and restorative processes, which can occur throughout the brain and the body. Therefore, sleep deprivation would result in detrimental consequences of nervous system includes deficits in cognition such as vigilance, attention, memory, as well as complex real-world tasks and depression. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to study the sleeping hours, stress levels, and academic performance among male and female medical students and to determine the correlation between sleeping hours and the student’s academic performance. Material and Methods: A total of 100 medical students (50 males and 50 females) studying the 2nd and 3rd year MBBS are enrolled in the survey. Closed-ended questionnaire was used as an instrument for this study. The questionnaire consists of three parts, i.e., general, stress scale, and study skill. In general part, data on student’s sleeping hours and academic achievements were collected. Student’s academic performance refers to the aggregate marks percentage that they attained in their university examination. Results: Most of the study population are average sleepers and all are in good health condition. We observed better academic performance in female students when compared to male students (76.06 ± 7.13 vs. 67.38 ± 3.44; P = 0.005). There is a significant positive correlation between sleeping hours and academic performance in female student (P < 0.0001). Female students with long sleeping hours were obtained better percentages in their academic results; in contrast, no significant relationship was observed between academic performance and sleeping hours in male students (P = 0.34). Conclusion: This study concludes that there is a significant positive linear relationship between sleeping hours and academic performance in female medical students while there is no such relationship in male medical students. A minimum of 7–8 h of sleep per day is suggestive to the students for memory and learning.