Association of Epworth Sleepiness Score with Anthropometric Measurements in Malaysian University Students

Malaysia has high prevalence of obesity in young adults. Obesity leads to health problems such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). It is a condition where nocturnal breathing cessation occurs during sleep. Thus, the quantity and quality of sleep is affected. Epworth Sleepiness Score (ESS) is a standardized tool to determine the quality of sleep. The aim of this study was to find the relationship between students’ sleep quality using this questionnaire and their anthropometric measurements. This study adopted a cross-sectional study design, with the convenience sampling technique applied on students of a private university in Malaysia. The participants answered the ESS questionnaire. Their height, weight, neck circumference, and abdominal circumference were obtained and the body mass index (BMI) was calculated. This study was conducted on 200 students with a mean age of 21.55 years. Their average BMI was 23.24 ± 6.1. The mean duration of sleep in the study population was 6.3 ± 1.4 SD hours. In the study population, the mean score for ESS was 10.32. A negative correlation between ESS scores and the BMI was noted. Pearson correlation showed —0.026 with a significance of 0.712. ESS scores showed that 17.9% of the study population had high risk of developing OSA. This study shows that as the BMI increases, the quality of sleep decreases, although it is not statistically significant.