Sleep quality and its determinants among Nigerian medical and dental interns

Abstract

Health workers often face many challenges, with poor sleep quality being one. Interns, who represent the most junior in the cadre of medical professionals, bear the greatest part of this burden. Only a few studies have examined the quality of sleep among health professionals in Nigeria. This study aims to assess the pattern, quality, factors influencing sleep patterns and evaluate the impact of sleep quality on job performance among Nigerian medical and dental interns. This was a cross-sectional study conducted among Nigerian medical and dental house officers across accredited teaching hospitals in Nigeria. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index online questionnaire was used to assess the sleep patterns and quality of consenting interns. A convenience sampling was utilised with a sample size of 208. To assess the relationships between research participants' sociodemographic characteristics and sleep quality, Pearson's chi-square tests were employed. A p < 0.05 cutoff was used to evaluate statistical significance. A total of 192 interns filled the questionnaire, and their ages ranged 21 years and above. There were more women (54.17%) than men (45.83%). Considering sex and age, females, who constitute about 54.17% of our sample population, were found to have poorer sleep quality than their male counterparts ( p = 0.017, χ 2 = 5.68) and younger participants aged 26–30 reported better sleep quality compared to those above 30 ( p = 0.014, χ 2 = 10.68). From our study, ethnic groups also played a role in the sleep quality of interns, with interns from the Igbo ethnicity of Nigeria reporting poorer sleep quality than their counterparts ( p = 0.007, χ 2 = 12.05). Our study reports a significant association between sleep quality and factors such as sex, age, and ethnicity. Young house officers and female healthcare workers reported poorer sleep quality, revealing that possible gender-specific intervention may be beneficial. It is worth noting that other variables like type of hospital, marital status, and sleep duration before housemanship did not significantly correlate with sleep quality.