The Relationship Between Anxiety and Sleep Quality Among Medical Students

Background: Anxiety and sleep disorders are both prevalent afflictions. The purpose of this study was to assess the anxiety and sleep quality prevalence among medical students and the relationship between sleep quality, anxiety, and other variables. Method: This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 140 medical students at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Anxiety and sleep disorders were measured by Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) respectively. Result: Most of the participants had sleep disturbances (87.9%), and sleep latency (69.3%), and were suffering from poor sleep quality (68.6%). Also, 65.0% of students slept less than 7 h during the day and only a few students used sleeping medications (5.0%). We found a significant relationship between sleep quality and educational level (p < 0.05). In addition, subjective sleep quality and sleep disturbance level had a significant association with anxiety (p < 0.05). However, there was no relation between sleep duration, daily dysfunction, and anxiety (p > 0.05). Furthermore, we obtained a correlation between anxiety and poor sleep quality (R 2 = 0.13). Conclusion: Poor sleep quality and a high anxiety level are weakly correlated. Monitoring, treating, and preventing anxiety in students can improve both their academic and personal quality of life. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.