The Relationship between Sleeping Habits and Academic Performance among Medical Students in King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia

Introduction Sleep is an essential element of good health. It is one of the most basic physiological needs of human beings. Its quality is strongly related to psychological and physical health and other measures of well-being [1]. The pattern of adequate sleep and wakefulness in different subjects is known to vary with peoples age, the demands of their occupation, their physiological and psychosocial characteristics, psychiatric illness, and some types of physical illness. Aim of the Study The aim of this study is to describe sleep and habits, and to investigate the relationships between sleep habits sleep quality and the academic performance among Saudi medical students in eastern province, Saudi Arabia. Sleep habits can lead to progressively later sleep and wake times, missed classes, poor academic performance, and chronic sleep difficulties. Results More than one-half (57.6 %) of the students are having an income of up to 990 SR/month. And about one-eighth (14.2 %) of the students have a part-time job besides studying. Most of the students were found to be healthy and 28 students stated that they have a chronic disease, out of whom, 14 were excluded from the study as follows, 5 due to sickle cell anemia, 4 were having hypertension, 1 was having gastro-esophageal reflux disease, and 5 bronchial asthma patients. Conclusion These data do tell us whether individuals are likely to practice a certain behaviour and whether it is associated with poor sleep quality. It provides an estimate of the potential impact these behaviours may have in the students community. This study have shown a similar total sleep time ( 6.45 hours) and comparable sleep latency (28.2 mins) to many studies done on college students all over the world. In general, this study shows that in the most part.