Sleep pattern and life style habits in medical students and interns

Sleep pattern and behavior plays an important role in personality. It becomes very essentialin profession where decision making has to be precise. Health care profession is always a challenging filed,with evolving science every day the people in this profession are at risk of sleep deprivation either due towork schedule or stressors. Hence sleep pattern study in their study period will help in predicting patterndeveloped in sleep.Materials and Methods: 261 subjects participated in study constituting self-reporting questionnairewhich included sleepiness, acute insomnia and chronic insomnia, activities in bed and sleep environmentresponses was obtained which determined life style habits and individual sleep pattern and behaviorResults: 40% of study participants had sleep onset delay more than 30minutes and among them 4% ofparticipants needed pharmacological intervention. On comparison among different phases of course andinterns using ANOVA there was no statistical significant difference in sleep patterns but interns had poorsleep quality as per the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) criteria.Conclusion: The study indicated altered sleep patterns in the group of interns and in first year students ofthe course though it was not statistically significant.Keywords: Sleep, PSQI index, Life style habits.