Analysis of sleep quality in undergraduate students of different shift

Abstract

© 2015, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo. All rights reserved. Objective. To assess sleep quality (SQ) in college students attending the morning and night shifts and to compare the results with the variables: gender, attended shift and work, and to correlate the SQ with age, level of physical activity (PA) and quality of life (QL). Method. A total of 378 students from a private college in Curitiba were investigated. It was applied: The International Physical Activity Questionnaire - short version (IPAQ), the Quality of Life Questionnaire (SF-6D), and The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which states that the higher the score, the worse the SQ. Results. Over half of the students (60.6%) showed poor SQ. It was not found differences in SQ between males and females, and nor between school shifts. Students who also worked had poorer SQ (p=0.04). It was found correlation of SQ with age (r=0.12, p=0.02); with the level of PA (r=−0.12, p=0.02) and with QL (r =−0.45, p<0.01). Conclusion. This study demonstrated that the association between study and work, as well as advancing age, increases the tendency of a poor SQ and cause a possible damage to the learning process. It was also noticed a positive correlation between SQ, level of PA and QL.