Date of Award

12-7-2022

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MS in Epidemiology & Biostatistics

First Advisor

Dr. Nargis Asad

Second Advisor

Ms. Maryam Pyar Ali Lakhdir

Third Advisor

Syed Iqbal Azam

Department

Community Health Sciences

Abstract

Introduction: Sleep is among the essential biological components for living a healthy life. The brain and the body's physiology, including metabolism, nutritional management, and the immune, hormonal, and cardiovascular systems, all benefit from sufficient sleep. Sleep quality is defined as the satisfaction a person has from their sleep, how well they were able to sleep. It is defined as either good or poor quality. Adolescents' sleep quality is also influenced by the digital environment. College students are acknowledged as a substantial sleep-deprived but digitally savvy populace. Professional college students in the United States have been demonstrated to be particularly prone to sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality. Excessive usage of mobile phones, notably smart phones, appears to have produced issues and obstacles for university students, as well as parental worries. Nomophobia is defined as "the panic of losing touch with one's mobile phone" as well as the "anxiety that mobile phone users experience". An overwhelming majority (93%) of medical students were discovered to be addicted to their mobile phones and other forms of social informatics, with many even sleeping with them next to their beds. Pakistan is one of the countries with the fastest-growing rates of Smartphone ownership. With a 7% increase in Smartphone usage between 2013 (8% of the population) and 2015 (15%), Pakistan ranks 11th on the list of emerging countries that have observed significant changes in Smartphone ownership over that period. This study aims to assess the relationship of nomophobia with sleep quality along with their prevalence among undergraduate health sciences students.
Methods: This was a cross sectional study done on undergraduate students at The Aga Khan University as the results are drawn based on the prevalence of nomophobia and sleep quality. Purposive sampling was used to enrol 551 students studying in MBBS and BScN programme. Sleep quality was measured by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). This tool is validated and has a Cronbach alpha value of 0.8. PSQI consists of nineteen self-reported question that cover seven dimensions of “subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbance, use of sleeping drugs and daytime dysfunction.” Nomophobia is assessed by Nomophobia Questionnaire which has a strong internal validity and consistency with alpha value of 0.9 in our setting. There are twenty selfreported questions which cover four dimensions of “not being able to communicate, loss of connectedness, not being able to access information, and giving up convenience.”
Results: Gender predilection for females was found as they numbered 385 (69.1%) as compared to 166 males (30.1%). The proportion of students from both faculties was almost equal with 260 (47.2%) students recruited from medical college and 291 (52.8%) students from school of nursing. The highest proportion was found in the category of moderate nomophobia involving 313 students (56.8%). Our study concluded that the prevalence of poor sleep quality among students that have severe nomophobia were 1.71 times as compared to those with no or mild nomophobia when adjusted for other variables in the model.
Conclusion: Poor sleep quality owing to severe nomophobia was found to be alarming in our study. Both sleep disorders and nomophobia are serious public health issues, and they may have mutual influences across demographics, socioeconomic status, and geographical location. This study calls for immediate attention to implement further preventive interventions to address the smartphone usage leading to poor sleep quality.

First Page

1

Last Page

45

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