ABSTRACT

Background: Sleep disorder is one of the major problems of health, because it causes impairments in daily function and decreases mind and body functions. The Student’s academic life is accompanied with numerous sleep disturbing factors, e.g. studying for long times, living in dormitory and so on, which influences their function and instruction. The main goal of this study was investigating the parasomnia disorders and its effective factors in medical students. 

Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 210 people of medical students of Ardabil in 2012. Data collection was adjusted ​​in a two-part questionnaire that was made by researcher. The first section included demographic information (Age, sex, marital status, residence, education). The second part consisted of 35 questions, which 7 questions were related to Parasomnia and 28 questions were related to factors affecting Parasomnia. The data were analyzed by SPSS v.19 and descriptive and analytical statistics.

Results: 210 medical students participated in this study of which 103 people (49%) were males and 107 (51%) females, 191 (91%) were single and 76 (36.2%) native. Prevalence of parasomnia was 9.5% (20 people), and among different types of parasomnias, night mare with 48.5 % ( 102 people) was the most common and enuresis with 1.4 % ( 3 people) was the least. Between different courses of medicine, parasomnia was the most common in physiopathology with 22.6 % (12 people). Parasomnia was more common in girls than boys (p<0.05). The differences between various levels of medical courses was significant (p<0.05), too but there were no differences between native and nonnative students.

Conclusion: This research showed that, sleep disorders are common problems among students, which can be affected by factors like stress and emotional and familial problems Thus, using environmental factors modification strategies can improve sleep quality in university students.

Keywords: Sleep, Parasomnia Disorders, Medical Students