The Interrelationship between Perceived Stress Level, Sleep Quality, and Academic Performance among Students of a Caribbean Medical School

Objective: Stress and sleep are essential elements of life and how these two factors affect academic performance of medical students must be studied properly in order to maximally and efficiently facilitate the medical training of future physicians.Methods: 77 medical students who had similar work-load participated in this study.Participants were asked to answer the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire and the Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire.The analyzed variables, quality of sleep and individual subjective perception of stress were linked to students' grade point average (GPA).The SPSS version 24 was used for the regression analysis and determination of a Pearson correlation coefficient between perceived stress level, sleep quality, and academic performance.Results: The majority of participants (80%) experienced a moderate level of stress but the correlation between a perceived stress level and GPA was not found (p>0.7).The distribution of sleep quality among showed that 58% of students described good quality of sleep.There was a correlation (R= -0.67) between the PSQI and GPA (p<0.03),supporting a relationship between higher GPA and good sleep quality.Conclusion: Adequate sleep is imperative to learning and it is evidenced that a reasonable amount of stress is not only realistic but may also be advantageous to the learning process.Therefore, both sleep and stress interact in a mutual fashion and affect memory retention, and by extension, learning.