Background: Medical specialties residents are exposed to several factors that can affect their sleep. On-call duties, exam stress, and qualification issues are the main factors.
Objectives: To assess sleep quality among residents of Saudi Board of Family Medicine and compare it with that of service doctors of primary care.
materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that included all residents of Saudi Joint Program of Family Medicine (n = 71). There were four levels of training for residents: R1, R2, R3, and R4. An equal number of service doctors were included in this study by a convenience sampling technique to compare their sleep with residents sleep. Sleep quality was assessed using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. This tool can define sleep quality as poor or good according to the score result.
Results: Only 59 responses (83.1%) were obtained from residents group, compared to 71 responses (100%) from service group. More than 90% of R1 and R2 had poor sleep, compared to 67% in R3 and 77% in R4. However, among all residents levels, 48 (81.3%) had poor sleep, compared to 34 (47.8%) from service doctors (OR = 1.99, 2 = 15.5, P < 0.001). Regression analysis was carried out for different variables, which showed that marital status was the only variable that significantly affected sleep quality, with married doctors having worse sleep than unmarried ones.
Conclusion: R1 and R2 residents had poorer sleep than R3 and R4. However, all residents in general had worse sleep compared to service doctors.
Key words: Sleep quality, resident physicians, primary health care, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Saudi Arabia
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