The prevalence and associated factors of sleep deprivation among healthy college students in China: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of sleep deprivation among college students is increasing and has a few associated factors. METHODS: The present study analyzed 2,142 college students from 28 provinces in China. The Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to assess sleep duration. Binary logistic regression was conducted to explore the sleep deprivation related factors. Age and gender were controlled as covariates. RESULTS: Among the 2,142 college students (27.7% male, 72.3% female), 1,620 (75.6%) reported the average sleep duration was below 7 h per day for one month, 49.3% (1,055/2,142) slept 6∼7 h (contains 6 h), 21.0% (449/2,142) slept 5∼6 h (contains 5 h), and 5.4% (116/2,142) slept <5 h. Age increased the risk of sleep deprivation, the adjusted odds ratio = 1.05 (95% CI [1.01∼1.10]). The adjusted odds ratio (A-OR) for sleep deprivation was higher for students of more than 60 min nap duration per day (A-OR = 2.35, 95% CI [1.45∼3.80]), and age growth (A-OR = 1.05, 95% CI [1.01∼1.10]). In contrast, A-ORs were lower among sleeping inconsistency between work and rest days (A-OR = 0.61, 95% CI [0.49∼0.75]), accustomed to staying up late (A-OR = 0.45, 95% CI [0.36∼0.57]), staying up late to work or study (A-OR = 0.62, 95% CI [0.49∼0.78]), stress (A-OR = 0.75, 95% CI [0.58∼0.98]), and repeated thoughts in bed had (A-OR = 0.79, 95% CI [0.62∼0.99]). CONCLUSIONS: Sleep deprivation is extremely common among healthy college students in China. It is necessary to perform methods maintaining enough sleep due to the current high incidence of sleep deprivation. Controlling the nap duration and getting enough sleep on rest days to replace missing hours of sleep on workdays might improve college students’ sleep.