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Effects of gender, medical school class year, and majors on sleep quality in Chinese medical students: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  • Neurology • Review
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Abstract

Background

Sleep problems are common in the general population, and medical students are one subgroup of the general population who appear to be especially vulnerable to poor sleep. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the effects of gender, medical school class year, and majors on sleep quality among Chinese medical students.

Methods

Electronic databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, WanFang, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and VIP Database were systematically searched from inception to 26 March 2019.

Results

Thirteen studies with 18,740 participants were included in the analysis. Among them, 25% of medical students exhibited poor sleep quality. No significant differences were found between male and female students in the prevalence of poor sleep quality (odds ratio = 0.87, 95% confidence interval 0.72, 1.04; Chi2 = 3.88, I2 = 0%) or Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores (mean difference = − 0.06, 95% confidence interval − 0.15, 0.02; Chi2 = 9.70, I2 = 28%). No significant differences were found in the prevalence of poor sleep quality between students in lower and higher medical school class year (odds ratio = 0.98, 95% confidence interval 0.66, 1.45; Chi2 = 38.84, I2 = 83%). No significant differences were found in the prevalence of poor sleep quality (mean difference = 1.02, 95% confidence interval 0.77, 1.36; Chi2 = 0.18, I2 = 0%) or Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores (mean difference = − 0.16, 95% confidence interval − 0.57, 0.26; Chi2 = 0.99, I2 = 0%) between students majoring in Clinical Medicine and Medical Imaging.

Conclusions

More detail is warranted in future studies in order to reveal subgroups of medical students who suffer from poor sleep quality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College (CAMS & PUMC), Beijing, 100730, China

    Jianhua Chen, Ying Zhang & Xiangqin Zhou

Authors
  1. Jianhua Chen
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  2. Ying Zhang
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  3. Xiangqin Zhou
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Contributions

CJH, ZY, and ZXQ contributed to study design. CJH and ZY designed search strategies and conducted database search. CJH, ZY, and ZXQ selected studies, performed data collection, analyzed, and interpreted the data. CJH and ZY drafted the manuscript. CJH, ZY, and ZXQ critically revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jianhua Chen.

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All authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the included studies.

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Chen, J., Zhang, Y. & Zhou, X. Effects of gender, medical school class year, and majors on sleep quality in Chinese medical students: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Breath 24, 259–266 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-019-01905-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-019-01905-4

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