Department of Respiratory Medicine, Changi General Hospital, 2 SimeiStreet 3, Singapore – 529889
*Name for correspondence: Dr Sridhar Venkateswaran, Postal address: Department of Respiratory Medicine, Changi General Hospital, 2 SimeiStreet 3, Singapore– 529889, Tel no: 65 68503734(Work) 65 94243830(Mobile), Fax: 65 67816202. Email address: sridhar_venkateswaran@cgh.com.sg
To survey the sleep habits and the demographics of medical students and interns (house officers) at our institution.
Third-and fifth-year medical students and interns at our hospital were surveyed between November 2006 and March 2007 using a confidential survey.
The response rate was 96.5%, with 221 individuals completing the survey. Of these, 59.2% were male and 38.0% were female, with 2.8% unknown. Their mean age was 23.8±1.4 years. There were 60 interns, 115 fifth-year medical students, and 46 third-year medical students. The mean sleep latency was 14.7±9.3 min, and the mean total sleep time was 6.1±1.0 h. Snoring was present in 13.6% of the subjects and 59.2% took afternoon naps on the weekends. Ten participants were admitted to having medical comorbidities, with hypertension affecting 2 people. The majority (77.3%) had daytime hypersomnolence, and 71.0% fell asleep returning home on public transport in the evenings. There were 16.7% who admitted to falling asleep at the wheel, but only 1.8% had car accidents attributable to falling asleep while driving. There were no significant differences between the three groups in all the categories.
Participants of this survey were young and generally healthy, but were predominantly hypersomnolent during the day with a significant minority having micro-sleeps at the wheel. There may be more than one possible explanation for this.
Demographics, Hypertension, Snoring, Sleep, Hypersomnolence
