Latent profile analysis for health-related quality of life, sleep quality, morning and evening type, and internet addiction among medical students

Abstract

Health-related quality of life, sleep quality, morning and evening types, and internet addiction are of significant importance to the development of medical students, yet they have rarely been studied. Taking this into consideration, the study aimed to confirm latent profiles in health-related quality of life, sleep quality, morning and evening types, and internet addiction in medical students and investigate the characteristics of participants in each profile to provide suggestions for students' health. This was an observational cross-sectional study including 1221 medical student subjects at China Medical University in 2019. Multiple correspondence analysis was the initial step to verify the correspondence, dispersion, and approximation of variable categories. Latent profile analysis was used to identify the multiple correspondences between the levels of variables. Three profiles were found, including: (1) The Low sleep quality profile was characterized by the lowest sleep quality among the three existing profiles. (2) The High health-related quality of life and Low internet addiction profile was characterized by the highest level of health-related quality of life but the lowest level of internet addiction. (3) The Low health-related quality of life and High internet addiction profile was characterized by the highest standardized values of internet addiction but the lowest standardized values of health-related quality of life. This study had important implications for improving student health and supported the medical universities and hospitals in implementing targeted policies based on distinctive student characteristics.

Figure 1

Multiple correspondence analyses of variables related to medical students’ health-related quality of life, sleep quality, morning and evening type, and internet addiction.

Figure 2

Differences in health-related quality of life, sleep quality, morning and evening type, and internet addiction among medical students for the three profiles. Abbreviations: HRQL, standardized values of health-related quality of life; IA, standardized values of internet addiction; ME, standardized values of morning and evening type; SQ, standardized values of sleep quality. Standardization is to convert the original values of a column of variables into standard scores, and the formula is (original value—mean value of variables)/standard error. After standardization, data with 0 as the average and 1 as the standard deviation are obtained.