0655 Circadian Sleep Preferences, Sleep Quality, Daytime Sleepiness and Sleep Hygiene amongst Undergraduate students of a Nigerian University

Sleep is very important for human health and survival. Among the most important functions of sleep is the enhancement of cognitive functioning such as attention, decision-making and most notably learning and memory, factors which are very key for efficient academic performance of undergraduate students. The study objectives were to assess the patterns of circadian sleep preferences, sleep quality, daytime sleepiness and sleep hygiene amongst undergraduate students while also examining their relationships. It was a descriptive cross-sectional study which employed a multistage sampling method to recruit participants. A self-administered questionnaire containing sociodemographic factors, Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) was administered to assess the circadian preference, sleep quality, daytime sleepiness and sleep hygiene of the undergraduate students. Out of 360 students that gave consent to participate in the study, 348 (97.0%) returned an appropriately-filled questionnaire (Male- 44.8%). About one-third (34.8%) of the respondents had morning sleep chronotype while 4.7% had evening sleep chronotype. The prevalence of poor sleep quality was 42.5% and one out of every three respondents (34.2%) had excessive daytime sleepiness. Sleep quality had a significant positive correlation with sleep hygiene (r= 0.29, p <0.01) while there was a negative correlation between MEQ scores and PSQI scores (r= -0.17, p < 0.01) suggesting that morning sleep chronotype correlates with better sleep quality. The result showed that quality of sleep was worse in respondents with evening chronotype. It also showed that maladaptive sleep hygiene is significantly associated with poor sleep quality. Better understanding of these associations can provide important information that can be used to design health promotion and disease prevention activities amongst undergraduate students. Nil.