Nightmares and Associations with Sleep Quality and Self-Efficacy among University Students

Abstract

However, frequency should also be taken into account as the results of Sweileh and colleagues showed with 12.8% of the students having nightmares 1-2 times a week, 2.5% having nightmares 3-4 nights a week, whereas 3.5% of students suffered from nightmares almost every night [5]. In the study of Schredl (2003) 52.2% of students experienced nightmares once a month or more often, whereas 12.1% reported that nightmares occur at least once a week. This broad range of prevalence rates is often based on question type and the absence of the awakening criterion [6]. Various other factors are associated with nightmares and nightmare frequency. Over all, woman report more often nightmares than men also in students [7-9]. Mental disorders as anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder are often associated or the underlying disorder [10,11]. Furthermore, significant correlations between nightmares and insomnia or sleep quality complaints have been reported by various studies also including students [6,4,5] affecting the dreamer [6]. In addition, Schredl (2003) compared the effects of trait and state factors on nightmare frequency in mainly psychology students. Neuroticism and thinness of boundaries were related to nightmare frequency. Beyond that, state factors as well as trait factors affected nightmare frequency; besides the effect of current stress. Students are faced with multiple challenging facets of their lives such as changing their place of residence, new city, new classes, later on exams, work, and relationships. The amount of requirements often leads to stress and sleep problems [12,13]. Besides high school graduation, self-efficacy is a predictor of academic success [14]. Self-efficacy is the ability to manage future behaviour and the expectation that a person has toward actions mastered by self-competence. Bandura, suggests that students' beliefs in their self-efficacy, to regulate their own competence, play a key role in mastering academic demands [15]. Beyond that, Bouchard and colleagues associated low self-efficacy Abstract Sleep problems are a common complaint among adults. In university students international studies showed prevalence rates between 4.7 and 36.2% for sleep difficulties and 2-3% of students report nightmares. Previous studies show that nightmares are often associated with insomnia and mental strain, but also with gender. The goal of this study was to outline nightmares, associations with sleep disturbances and mental strain as well as self-efficacy among university students. An amount of 2196 students (70.9% women; mean age 24.16 years) participated in the study. Sleep characteristics, nightmares, mental strain and self-efficacy were assessed by self-report questionnaires. Analyses revealed that more than 24.3% of surveyed students suffered from nightmares, 18.5% reported nightmares more often than once a week and 5.8% suffered from nightmares at least 3 times a week. Moreover, nightmares were associated with symptoms of insomnia and low self-efficacy was significantly associated with an increased rate of nightmares. Besides, a total of 52% of students reported fitful sleep.