“Sleep? Maybe later⋯ ” A cross-campus survey of university students and sleep practices

Abstract

Sleep deficiency is a significant issue across higher education campuses and has a detrimental effect on students’ academic achievement, physical and mental health, and overall wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to carry out a campus-wide survey determining students’ self-reported sleep patterns, sources of advice for sleep problems, current sleep promoting practices, and preferred mechanisms to receive new information assisting with sleep problems. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed in February 2016 to all levels of students at the University of Alberta in the Western region of Canada. Descriptive data analysis was carried out with SPSS (v23). There were 1294 students (78.0% undergraduates; 87.5% living off-campus, 77.5% female) who participated in the survey. Sleeping less than 6.5 h a night was reported by 30.5% of participants; 66.5% stated they had insufficient sleep; 80.6% had not sought help. The three most frequent behaviours to aid sleep were reading a book, listening to music, and adjusting the heat. Although sleep problems were widely reported, students seldom sought help for this. The survey revealed that students already practice several strategies (listening to music, for example) that lend themselves to serving as a foundation for a strength-based cross-campus social marketing campaign of sleep promoting strategies.