Stress and Sleep Difficulties in a sample of students of Faculty of Medicine, Ain-Shams University

Abstract

edical education is considered to be a stressful area of education due to the high academic requirements and demanding professionals, the fact that shows a negative influence on both the mental and physical health of the students. Several factors contribute to this situation; including academic overload, overnight on-call duties, contact with diseases and deaths, frequent examinations, and comprehensive curricula. Furthermore, these students facing multiple stressors outside their medical school: physical, social, emotional, and family problems.

Stress normally gets managed with healthy habits such as exercise, diet, self-discipline, and self-management, these self-care activities monitor general health in response to the time demands of medical school unfortunately many medical students eliminate these healthy habits and become victims of stress-related depression and anxiety. Stressors get added on to other stressors or coping difficulties in academics can lead the stress into distress. It has been observed in the literature that curriculum in medical schools that is including examination and academic-related factors were the most significant stressors.

Among the students, poor quality of sleep is strongly linked to emotional disturbance; feeling of anger, tension, depression, confusion, and exhaustion; cognitive and memory dilemmas; and overall low life satisfaction. Sleep deprivation considered as one of the most common causes of daytime sleepiness and tiredness. Sleep deprivation can arise from poor sleep behaviors, as the use of social media applications and technology before going to bed can also affect sleep quality adversely. Many students have poor sleep hygiene, which in combination with their delayed circadian rhythm stimulates sleep deprivation. The rising levels of poor sleep quality and psychological distress harm mental and physical health. It is essential to evaluate the level of mental and physical health of our students and identify the gaps to enhance students’ quality of life.