Factors associated with sleep quality in Physical Therapy students

Abstract

Sleep deprivation is a common situation among students and can cause health problems and learning difficulties. On this way, the aim of the study was to analyze the sleep pattern of physical therapy university students, as well as the associated factors with quality of sleep. A total of 199 physical therapy students participate of the study. To asses sleep quality, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used. Environmental, biological and social variables were investigated and their relations to sleep quality were analyzed. It was shown that 51.75% of the students showed poor sleep quality, which has been associated with shorter sleep duration (p<0.01) and earlier wake-up time in weekdays (p<0.01), double work shift (p<0.01) and increased daytime sleepiness (p<0.01). It was concluded that the quality of sleep was poor in 51.75% of the evaluated students and this may have multifactorial cause.