Sleeping Pattern of Medical Students Preceding Viva Examination and Their Performance

• Main Author: Mukhtar Ansari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nepal Medical Association 2016-10-01
• Series: Journal of Nepal Medical Association
• Online Access: http://jnma.com.np/journal/index.php/jnma/article/view/3014

Introduction: Sleep is an important determinant of keeping healthy physically and mentally. Deviation in sleep is a common problem among students during examinations. The purpose of this study is to determine students’ sleep pattern during night preceding viva examination and its correlation with performance.  Methods: This was a cross-sectional prospective study conducted between January and February 2014 among 1st and 2nd year MBBS students of National Medical College, Birgunj, Nepal who appeared in University’s  nal practical examinations. Based on simple random sampling approach, each of the 280 participants was allowed to pick out ve pieces of lottery papers and they were asked the ve questions resembling the number in the list of questions.  Results: Among the total 280 students, 74.6% were from India and 25.4% were from Nepal, and majorities (63%) of them were males. Fifty two percent of the students either could not sleep at all or slept just for 1 to 1.5 hours while 12% slept for 5 to 6.5 hours. Two-third (66%) of the students was able enough to achieve one to two scores, and only 1.8% could succeed to get the maximum score of ve. The correlation between hours of sleep preceding examination and the score achieved was positively (r=0.701) and statistically signi cantly correlated (p<0.001). Conclusions: There is a trend among the medical students either not to sleep or sleep only for few hours preceding viva examination that result in poor performance in examinations.  Keywords: medical; Nepal; performance; sleep deprivation; students.