1Senior Resident, Department of Physiology, IGIMS Medical College, Patna
2Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, IGIMS Medical College, Patna
3Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, VIMS, Pawapuri, Bihar
4Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, PIMS, Udaipur, Rajasthan
*Corresponding author: Dr. Jhillmill Kumari, Senior Resident, Deptt. of Physiology, IGIMS, Patna, E.mail: jhini98@gmail.com
Assessment of Executive function in chronically sleep deprived medical students.
Sleep is an utmost necessary physiological requirement needed for maintaining WHO definition of health. Several studies till date are in unison in pointing towards the fact that sleep deprivation has a detrimental effect on neurocognition. Chronic partial sleep deprivation is common among medical students due to the vast course content and peer pressures, which may lead to decline in their cognitive abilities ultimately affecting their academic performance.
Medical students were selected for the present study. 50 subjects who reported sleeping less than 6.5 hours per day for a continuous duration of 6 month were categorized as chronic partial sleep deprived. Baseline recording was done within first week of their joining the MBBS course and second at the end of six month. We investigated executive function using neurocognitive test such as Ruff Figural Fluency Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWA), Stroop Colour word Interference Test and Trail Making-B test.
Subject had better score on Stroop colour word interference test, Controlled oral word association test and Trail Making Test-B when they were tested in sleep replete condition compared to when they were chronic partially sleep deprived and the difference was statistically significant
We the author came to the conclusion that not only short term sleep deprivation has negative effect on executive function but chronic partial sleep deprivation has similar effect.
Chronic Partial Sleep Deprivation, Executive Function
