Objective : This study aimed to investigate the reported sleep habits in middle and high school students that included patterns of sleep and wakefulness on weekdays and weekends. In this paper, however, we report patterns of sleep and sleepiness on we...
Objective : This study aimed to investigate the reported sleep habits in middle and high school students that included patterns of sleep and wakefulness on weekdays and weekends. In this paper, however, we report patterns of sleep and sleepiness on weekdays which is the main topic of this study.
Method : A sleep habits questionnaire was adminstered to 2279 middle and high school students (boys=1191, girls-1106) who go to the same school and live in a large city, Kwangju.
Results : In terms of night sleep, the students in higher grades, specifically 3rd grade high school(H3) students showed a pattern of decreased sleep length with the tendency of later bedtime and earlier rise time compared to the other grade students. For waking up on mornings H3 students were more dependent on alarm or other people rather than spontaneous waking compared to the other grade students. Daytime sleepiness reflected by napping and dozing was most severe in H3 students. The time zones of frequent napping and dozing were between 13 : 00 and 15 : 00. The likelihood of dozing was most often while attending a class or studying.
Conclusions : These findings indicate that a reduction of sleep in H3 stduents is presumablely due to academic competitive pressure for college entrance examination. Therefore the impact of this sleep pattern on learning and education as well as on general health should be assessed in future studies.