Exploring relationships between sleep-wake patterns, wellness, burnout, self-efficacy, and academic performance in medical students

Abstract

Purpose: Morningness and eveningness are terms related to an individual’s sleep-wake pattern. Individuals with a morningness chronotype tend to wake up earlier, are more productive in the daytime, and go to bed earlier while individuals with an eveningness chronotype tend to wake up later, are more productive in the evening hours, and go to sleep later in the night. The purpose of this study was to see if medical students’ sleep-wake patterns correlated to their wellbeing and academic performance. We hypothesized that individuals with morningness chronotypes would report better wellbeing and higher GPAs than individuals with an eveningness chronotype. Another objective of the study was to determine if there were any differences between preclinical (M1) and clinical medical students (M3) in chronotype, levels of burnout, wellness, self-efficacy, and academic performance. We hypothesized that M3 students would have an increased preference for morningness and better overall wellness and academic outcomes compared to the M1 students.[JK1] Methods: Data were collected using an anonymous online survey. The M1 students were administered a 51-question survey in May of their first year while M3 students were administered a 62-question survey in May of their third year consisting of question subsets from multiple validated surveys. Chronotype was determined using the Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM) survey. Wellness metrics were measured using the CDC Healthy Days Measure, School Burnout Inventory, and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). M1 students completed a self-efficacy instrument about academic work and M3 students completed items about self-efficacy for clinical work. Academic performance was measured using cumulative GPA for M1 students and third year GPA for M3 students. The study was exempted by the UCF IRB. Data: Forty M1 students and 25 M3 students completed the survey, totaling 65 total participants. There was no statistically significant difference between M1 and M3 regarding morningness or eveningness chronotypes, allowing us to combine M1 and M3 data to run correlations of chronotype with wellness and academic metrics for all students. Morningness was associated with an increased number of healthy days (p=0.041, R2= 0.254) and a decreased amount of daytime sleepiness (p=0.017, R2= -0.296). Eveningness was correlated with a lower overall GPA (p=0.044, R2=-0.250). The other correlations did not demonstrate any association between chronotypes and the wellness/academic metrics. Conclusion: Morningness chronotypes were associated with an increase in health-related quality of life and a decrease in excessive sleepiness, while eveningness chronotypes were associated with lower GPAs, indicating that morningness may improve certain wellness and academic metrics. No significant associations between chronotypes and burnout or self-efficacy were found. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.