The Worldwide Prevalence of Sleep Problems Among Medical Students by Problem, Country, and COVID-19 Status: a Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Meta-regression of 109 Studies Involving 59427 Participants

• Published in: Current sleep medicine reports Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 161 - 179
• Main Authors: Binjabr, Mohammed A., Alalawi, Idrees S., Alzahrani, Rayan A., Albalawi, Othub S., Hamzah, Rakan H., Ibrahim, Yazed S., Buali, Fatima, Husni, Mariwan, BaHammam, Ahmed S., Vitiello, Michael V., Jahrami, Haitham
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.09.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Cardiology; COVID-19; Distance learning; Family Medicine; General Practice; Internal Medicine; Medical students; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental disorders; Mental health; Meta-analysis; Neurology; Otorhinolaryngology; Pandemics; Population; Psychiatry; Sleep disorders; Systematic review; Topical Collection on Sleep and Public Health; United States > US; Pittsburgh Pennsylvania; COVID-19; Medical students; Pittsburgh sleep quality index; Sleep; Project registration: Open Science Framework Identifier: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/UVH5C; Insomnia; Excessive daytime sleepiness
• ISSN: 2198-6401; 2198-6401
• DOI: 10.1007/s40675-023-00258-5

Purpose of Review Several studies have found that medical students have a significant prevalence of sleep issues, such as poor sleep quality, excessive daytime sleepiness, and inadequate sleep duration. The purpose of this review is to carefully evaluate the current research on sleep problems among medical students and, as a result, estimate the prevalence of these disturbances. The EMBASE, PsychINFO, PubMed/MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Web of Science and retrieved article reference lists were rigorously searched and rated for quality. Random effects meta-analysis was performed to compute estimates. Recent Findings The current meta-analysis revealed an alarming estimated pooled prevalence of poor sleep quality (K = 95, N = 54894) of 55.64% [95%CI 51.45%; 59.74%]. A total of 33.32% [95%CI 26.52%; 40.91%] of the students (K = 28, N = 10122) experienced excessive sleepiness during the day. The average sleep duration for medical students (K = 35, N = 18052) is only 6.5 h per night [95%CI 6.24; 6.64], which suggests that at least 30% of them get less sleep than the recommended 7–9 h per night. Summary Sleep issues are common among medical students, making them a genuine problem. Future research should focus on prevention and intervention initiatives aimed at these groups.