Prediction of sleep quality among university students after analyzing lifestyles, sports habits, and mental health

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a prediction model to evaluate the risk of poor sleep quality. We performed a cross-sectional study and enrolled 1,928 college students from five universities between September and November 2021. The quality of sleep was evaluated using the Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Participants were divided into a training (n = 1,555) group and a validation (n = 373) group. The training group was used to establish the model, and the validation group was used to validate the predictive effectiveness of the model. The risk classification of all participants was performed based on the optimal threshold of the model. Of all enrolled participants, 45.07% (869/1,928) had poor sleep quality (PSQI score ≧ 6 points). Multivariate analysis showed that factors such as older age, a higher grade, previous smoking, drinking, midday rest, chronic disease, anxiety, and stress were significantly associated with a higher rate of poor sleep quality, while preference for vegetables was significantly associated with better sleep quality, and all these variables were included to develop the prediction model. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.765 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.742–0.789] in the training group and 0.715 (95% CI: 0.664–0.766) in the validation group. Corresponding discrimination slopes were 0.207 and 0.167, respectively, and Brier scores were 0.195 and 0.221, respectively. Calibration curves showed favorable matched consistency between the predicted and actual probability of poor sleep quality in both groups. Based on the optimal threshold, the actual probability of poor sleep quality was 29.03% (317/1,092) in the low-risk group and 66.03% (552/836) in the high-risk group (P < 0.001). A nomogram was presented to calculate the probability of poor sleep quality to promote the applicationof the model. The prediction model can be a helpful tool to stratify sleep quality, especially among university students. Some intervention measures or preventive strategies to quit smoking and drinking, eat more vegetables, avoid midday rest, treat chronic disease, and alleviate anxiety and stress may be considerably beneficial in improving sleep quality.