A Survey on the Effect of Screen Time Before Bed on Sleep Quality Among Medical Students of Melaka-Manipal Medical College

Divya Ramesh; Praveen Kumar Dey; Methni Malshika Kularathne; Koswattage Christian Dinelka Perera; Ganaish Raj Maheshwaran

doi:7190262

Sleep influences the quality of life and well-being as it is a fundamental requirement for a human being to function biologically, psychologically and socially. Medical students are a subset of the general population that are predisposed to poor sleep due to several factors and one of it is increased usage of 'screen time' which comprises mobile phone and computer usage, playing video games and television viewing. Despite numerous previous research articles investigating screen-time as well as factors affecting sleep quality, a detailed relationship between screen-time before bed and sleep quality among medical students specifically is yet to be elucidated. Thus, we have investigated the relationship between screen-time before bed and sleep quality among undergraduate medical students of Melaka-Manipal Medical College. Screen-time before bed was explored in detail in terms of: device (s) used, duration of use, types of screen-time (interactive or passive), and how these can affect the sleep quality of medical students in terms of subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, sleep disturbance, use of sleeping medication and daytime dysfunction which we have measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). This cross-sectional study was carried out from July to September 2019 among 143 medical students of MMMC. The research was carried out by distributing the questionnaires that consists of 4 sections which are the demographic profiles, questions regarding type, duration and activities done on screen usage, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) regarding stress faced by the students in the past month, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) regarding sleep quality of students. Chi-squared test and multiple logistic regression were used to analyse the data and P<0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. Out of 143 students that participated in the study, 61 students (43.57%) are found to have good sleep quality and the remaining 79 students (56.43%) have poor sleep quality. Those who engaged in interactive screen time before bed for 30-60 minutes were less likely to have good sleep quality compared to those who spent <30 minutes and >60 minutes on interactive screen time. However, there was no significant association between duration of screen time before bed for durations of 30-60 minutes (p-value 0.166), >60 minutes (p-value 0.866), interactive screen time for 30-60 minutes (p-value 0.006) and >60 minutes (p-value 0.072) as well as passive screen time for 30-60 minutes (p-value 0.628) and >60 minutes (p-value 0.978) on sleep quality.

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