Background:

Sleep is a critical physiological state, which occurs with loss of consciousness and response capacity. During this, essential processes for learning and metabolism are carried out, so it is important to preserve adequate sleep quality.

Aim:

To describe the sleep quality of medical students at Andrés Bello University, Concepción headquarter, during the first half of 2019.

Methods:

A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out with 147 students from the first to fourth year of the medical career at Andrés Bello University, Concepción headquarter. Data was collected using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index --ICSP--, and later processed with IBM Statistics SPSS v.22 software.

Results:

91,8% of students showed poor sleep quality (ICSP> 5), with average score of 8,4. Components with mayor variability between courses were duration (p<0,01) and sleep disturbances (p<0,02). For their part, students who were working had mayor presence of sleep disturbances compared to those who only dedicated themselves to their studies (p=0,03).

Conclusions:

The surveyed students reported poor sleep hygiene. This could be attributed to the high academic demand and / or the time load used in theoretical and practical classes, and it would be made worse by adding additional demands such as having to work during studies. As a future projection, longitudinal follow-up of the students would be recommended, which would allow evaluating the impact that different variables such as stress, evaluations, variations in the number of subjects and semester clinical hours, among others, would have on the sleep quality of the students. MED.UIS.2021;34(3): 29-38.

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