Prevalence of Poor Sleep Quality and Its Determinants Among Bangladeshi Students: A Pilot Study

Over the past 75 years, sleep quality has been decreasing. Furthermore, when it comes to susceptibility to sleep disturbances, university students are among the more susceptible groups. The university campus environment can be unhealthy and unhygienic for maintaining good sleep status in Bangladesh, but there are no studies that have ever addressed sleep quality among Bangladeshi students. Consequently, this study investigated the prevalence of sleep quality alongside various socio-demographic and behavioral risk factors. A total of 450 undergraduates enrolled at Jahangirnagar University (Dhaka, Bangladesh) were approached to participate in the study. Of these, 279 completed the whole survey and kept for final analysis (59.9% males; average age 29.59 years). The study found that 58.4% (n = 163) were poor sleepers, with 16.2% describing their subjective sleep quality as bad (fairly bad to very bad). Approximately one-third of students (31.5%) were unable to fall asleep within 30 min. Over three-quarters of participants reported as having good sleep efficiency (78% with scores ≥ 85%), whereas 26.2% had sleep disturbance (component scores of 0 or 1), 31.1% had daytime dysfunction (component scores of 0 or 1), and 20% used medications at least once a week. Regression analyses demonstrated that being male and being a cigarette smoker were significantly associated with poor sleep quality. Sleep problems are highly prevalent among Bangladeshi university students. Therefore, the findings highlight the importance of sleep promoting strategies such as healthy sleep hygiene practices to manage the problem.