Original Research

The prevalence of insomnia and characteristics of sleep patterns collected from sleep diary among medical students of University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam


Introduction: Insomnia is a common disease in all societies and age groups. Among them, medical students are one of the population most susceptible to sleep problems. Studies from many countries have shown high prevalence of insomnia among medical students. Sleep diary is the gold standard for evaluating subjective insomnia and other sleep disorders. This research aims to study the prevalence of insomnia in Vietnamese medical students, associated factors, and their sleep patterns.

Method: In a cross-sectional survey using stratified random sampling, a total of 176 medical students was recruited, each completed a self-administered questionnaire and a 7-consecutive-day sleep diary. Demographic data and lifestyle factors were obtained from the questionnaire, while sleep patterns and quality were collected from the sleep diary. We performed data analysis using SPSS ver 22, p<0.05 was statistically significant.  

Results: Overall, out of 176 participants, 93 (52.8%) were affected by insomnia. On average, students acquired 6.2 hours of sleep each night. 70.94% of the recorded nights had total sleep time (TST) less than 7 hours. Associated factors of insomnia include sleep environment, sleep efficiency (SE), bedtime, falling asleep time, get up time, self-reported sleep quality.

Conclusion: The findings of our study revealed the high prevalence of insomnia among medical students. From recorded sleep data, we observed that sleep deprivation is also a common issue faced by the study participants. The valuable insights provided by sleep diary proved to be crucial in evaluating sleep patterns and quality.

Please insert your valid email address and click Free download