Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Feb;275(1):89-98.
doi: 10.1007/s00406-023-01707-6. Epub 2023 Nov 26.

Prevalence and influencing factors of sleep disturbance among medical students under the COVID-19 pandemic

Shuo Wang #  1 , Guoshuai Luo #  1 , Xue Zhang  1 , Yifan Jing  1 , Zaimina  1 , Cong Yao  1 , Meijuan Li  1 , Hongli Chen  2 , Jie Li  3
Affiliations

Prevalence and influencing factors of sleep disturbance among medical students under the COVID-19 pandemic

Shuo Wang et al. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2025 Feb.

Abstract

Background: Medical students may feel severe psychological stress during COVID-19, which might impair their ability to sleep. This research aimed to look at the risk factors for sleep disturbance and the prevalence of sleep disturbance among medical students.

Methods: 538 medical students in total were recruited for this research. Anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance were assessed using the Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). To evaluate the possible risk variables, we computed descriptive statistics for each assessment item and ran univariate and logistic regression analyses.

Results: Medical students had a 63.6% prevalence of sleep disturbance (n = 342). According to logistic regression, introverted students are 1.77 times more likely than extroverted students to have sleep disturbance (OR = 1.77, 95% CI 1.08-2.91). Medical students with depression had a 5.6-times higher risk of sleep disturbance than those without depression (OR = 5.60, 95% CI 3.43-9.15). Additionally, medical students with anxiety were 3.95 times more likely than those without anxiety to have sleep disturbance (OR = 3.95, 95% CI 2.04-7.64).

Conclusions: According to this research, the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant sleep disturbance among medical students. Additionally, among medical students, introversion, anxiety, and depression were risk factors for sleep disturbance.

Keywords: COVID-19; Medical students; Prevalence; Risk factor; Sleep disturbance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Ethical approval: The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Tianjin Anding Hospital. It was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards set forth in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants for their participation in this study.

References

    1. McKee M, Stuckler D (2020) If the world fails to protect the economy, covid-19 will damage health not just now but also in the future. Nat Med 26:640–642 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Bedford J, Enria D, Giesecke J, Heymann DL, Ihekweazu C, Kobinger G, Lane HC, Memish Z, Oh MD, Sall AA, Schuchat A, Ungchusak K, Wieler LH (2020) Covid-19: Towards controlling of a pandemic. Lancet (London, England) 395:1015–1018 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Legido-Quigley H, Mateos-García JT, Campos VR, Gea-Sánchez M, Muntaner C, McKee M (2020) The resilience of the spanish health system against the covid-19 pandemic. Lancet Public Health 5:e251–e252 - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Zhang X, Cai Y, Zhu K, Liu Z, Zhou Q, Zhu Y, Zhou C, Zhong Z, Liu Y, Xiao W (2023) Prevalence and risk factors of depression and anxiety among chinese adults who received sars-cov-2 vaccine - a cross-sectional survey. J Affect Disord 324:53–60 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Brooks SK, Webster RK, Smith LE, Woodland L, Wessely S, Greenberg N, Rubin GJ (2020) The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: Rapid review of the evidence. Lancet (London, England) 395:912–920 - PubMed - DOI