The association between insomnia & stress levels among Faculty of Health Sciences students

Abstract

University students are more susceptible to insomnia due to the stress from academic, social and other physical factors surrounding their studies. This study was conducted to ascertain and compare the prevalence of insomnia and stress levels among the students from the Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and to study the association between stress and insomnia. Results from the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) score found that 79.01% of the respondents reported moderate stress, in which the highest stress level was found among the 3rd Year students with a mean PSS Score of 19.5 ± 5.36. No significant difference between the stress levels among different academic years was detected. By utilising the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), less than half of the students were clinically insomniacs, in which 54.73% of the students reported no clinically significant insomnia while 32.10% and 13.7% suffer from subthreshold insomnia and clinical insomnia (moderate severity), respectively. There exists a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between the insomnia scores among different academic years, with the highest mean ISI score obtained by 2nd Year Students (9.16 ± 5.68). The results indicate a medium positive correlation between insomnia and stress level, as r= 0.33, p<0.001. The findings from this study will help develop stress management strategies to maximise the quality and quantity of sleep among university students.