Sleep Quality Assessment among Medical Intern\'s: An Observational Study

Background: Medical professionals are often subjected to long working hours and intensive academic teaching programs.This leads to altered sleep timings, duration, and quality.This study was carried out to assess the quality of sleep in medical intern's at a tertiary care teaching hospital.Methodology: This was a cross-sectional, observational, descriptive study conducted among medical intern's who were posted in various departments of a medical college in North India.A prestructured, pretested questionnaire incorporated into Google Forms was designed and circulated, containing questions on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).All the data were collected in a single day.Results: A total of 130 intern's participated in the study, where the mean global score (PSQI) was 6 with 2.82 values, and the global score ranged from 0 to 16.More than 70% of the students had a bad sleep quality (score 6-21).A majority of intern's (70%) slept late at night (12-2.59a.m.), and most (73%) woke up between 7 and 9 a.m.Around half of the people could fall asleep within 15 minutes of lying in bed, which increased to three-quarters within 30 minutes.Conclusion: A large proportion of medical intern's have poor sleep quality and delayed sleep phase syndrome, which can increase their morbidity and also affect the quality of patient care.