Sleep Quality and Psychological Parameters: A Cross-sectional Study on Medical Students during Second Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Stressors are defined as any event or conditions in the surroundings that may trigger stress. Medical students have immense stress of academics already and to this, second wave of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic worsened the scenario by having deleterious effect on the sleep quality, sleep duration and psychological parameters. Aim: To investigate the association between mental health and sleep health among medical students during second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: The present study was a crosssectional study, done on 180 medical students during first week of April 2021 within 10 days, after the Institutional Ethical clearance. The survey form was given in six groups of 30 students each with first description of the study and getting the informed consent. The study was done by using three widely used and validated tools, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). All the students voluntarily participated in the survey. Descriptive statistics and correlation test were applied using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0. The Correlation coefficient between three parameters was assessed using r-value. Results: The study results show that 72.22% of the students were having moderate stress and 29.44% of the students were having poor quality of sleep. An 18.89% of participants were moderately anxious for several days during this second wave of pandemic. Conclusion: Increased level of stress and anxiety had a direct impact on the quality of sleep due to second wave of COVID19 pandemic

Keywords

• general anxiety disorder-7
• perceived stress scale
• pittsburg sleep quality index