Physical Activity Level, Insomnia and Related Impact in Medical Students in Poland

Magdalena Dąbrowska-Galas, Kuba Ptaszkowski and Jolanta Dąbrowska
Additional contact information
Magdalena Dąbrowska-Galas: Department of Kinesitherapy and Special Methods, School of Health Sciences in Katowice, Medical University of Silesia, 40-752 Katowice, Poland
Kuba Ptaszkowski: Department of Clinical Biomechanics and Physiotherapy in Motor System Disorders, Faculty of Health Science, Wroclaw Medical University, 50-355 Wroclaw, Poland
Jolanta Dąbrowska: School of Health Sciences in Katowice, Medical University of Silesia, 40-752 Katowice, Poland

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-10

Abstract: Background: Specific academic environment and time spent on learning may lead to sleep deprivation and a sedentary lifestyle. Insomnia is the most common sleep complaint. The purposes of this study were to describe the prevalence of insomnia in medical students, and to examine physical activity levels and other behavioral factors associated with insomnia in this population group. Methods: We included 308 medical students from Poland. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was used to assess physical activity levels and the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS) was used to assess insomnia among students. A multifactor model of analysis was used to analyze variables related to insomnia. Results: A share of 19.2% of medical students were inactive. Insomnia was reported by 36.8% of students. In the multifactorial model, variables such as smoking cigarettes (ß = 0.21, p < 0.001), consuming energy drinks several times a month (ß = 0.21, p = 0.024), or daily stress (ß = 0.44, p < 0.001) had a negative impact on the quality of sleep of medical students. Conclusions: Most medical students are physically active, however, approximately one-third of the medical students experience insomnia. This sleep problem is reported more often in students who experience daily stress or smoke cigarettes.

Keywords: physical activity; sleep; insomnia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3081/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3081/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:6:p:3081-:d:518772

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().