The Relationship of Stress and Sleep Quality amongst Cognitive Science Students
Abstract
Stress is a common problem in modern life. Most Malaysian students suffer from high stress levels and poor sleep quality without realising their harmfulness to health and well-being. The major focus of the paper is to examine the relationship between stress and sleep quality among Cognitive Science undergraduate students. This paper also investigates if demographic attributes (gender differences and year of study) affect stress level and sleep quality. The participants of this study comprised 90 Cognitive Science undergraduate students studying at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. Data was collected by using the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (Perceived Stress Scale) and Sleep Quality Questionnaire (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index). The results of the study showed that there was a weak relationship between stress and sleep quality. Those in the poor sleep category reported higher levels of perceived stress. Moreover, the findings showed that female students had higher stress levels than male students. First year students appeared to experience poorer sleep quality compared to final year students. The study also found no interaction effects between gender and year of study on sleep quality and stress. Further research could be conducted with a bigger population size and in other study programs. Future research could also assess non-demographic factors which might influence stress and sleep quality.
References
Ahrberg, K., Dresler, M., Niedermaier, S., Steiger, A., & Genzel, L. (2012). The interaction between sleep quality and academic performance. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46(12), 1618-1622. DOI:10.1016/j.jpsychires. 2012.09.008.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2012.09.008
Anbumalar, C., Agines, D. P., Jaswanti, V., Priya, D., & Reniangelin, D. (2017). Gender differences in perceived stress levels and coping strategies among college students. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 4(4), DOI:10.25215/0404.103.
Anuradha, R., Dutta, R., Raja, J. D., Sivaprakasam, P., & Patil, A. B. (2017). Stress and stressors among medical undergraduate students: A cross-sectional study in a private medical college in Tamil Nadu. Indian Journal of Community Medicine: Official Publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine, 42(4), 222-225. DOI:10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_287_16.
https://doi.org/10.4103/ijcm.IJCM_287_16
Astill, R. G., Verhoeven, D., Vijzelaar, R. L., & Van Someren, E. J. W. (2013). Chronic stress undermines the compensatory sleep efficiency increase in response to sleep restriction in adolescents. Journal of Sleep Research, 22(4), 373-379. DOI:10.1111/jsr.12032.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12032
Behere, S., Behere, P., & Yadav, R. (2011). A comparative study of stress among students of medicine, engineering, and nursing. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 33(2), 145. DOI:10.4103/0253-7176.92064.
https://doi.org/10.4103/0253-7176.92064
Bernama (2016). Mental health of Malaysian students cause of worry: Health Ministry. New Straits Times. Retrieved March 13, 2021 from https://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/09/172683/mental-health-malaysian-students-cause-worry-health-ministry.
Buysse, D. J., Reynolds III, C. F., Monk, T. H., Berman, S. R., & Kupfer, D.J., (1989). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: A new instrument for psychiatric practice and research. Psychiatry Research, 28(2), pp193-213. DOI: 10.1016/0165-1781(89)90047-4.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-1781(89)90047-4
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385-396. DOI:10.2307/2136404.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2136404
Correa, C. D. C., Oliveira, F. K. D., Pizzamiglio, D. S., Ortolan, E. V. P., & Weber, S. A. T. (2017). Sleep quality in medical students: a comparison across the various phases of the medical course. Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia, 43(4), 285-289. DOI:10.1590/s1806-37562016000000178
https://doi.org/10.1590/s1806-37562016000000178
Hj Ramli, N., Alavi, M., Mehrinezhad, S., & Ahmadi, A. (2018). Academic stress and self-regulation among university students in Malaysia: Mediator role of mindfulness. Behavioral Sciences, 8(1), 12. DOI:10.3390% 2Fbs8010012
https://doi.org/10.3390/bs8010012
Lund, H. G., Reider, B. D., Whiting, A. B., & Prichard, J.R. (2010). Sleep patterns and predictors of disturbed sleep in a large population of college students. Journal of Adolescent Health, 46(2), 124-132. DOI:10.1016/j. jadohealth.2009.06.016
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.06.016
Omar, A., Humam, H., Lubna, M., Fatima, S., Alak, K. H., Rizwana, B. S., Shatha, A. S., & Faheem, A. K. (2012). Sleep quality among university students in the UAE. Gulf Med. Univ. : Proc. 2012; (6-May): 193-199.
Ramteke, P. V. & Ansari, R. J. (2016). Stress and anxiety among first year and final year engineering students. International Journal of Advanced Research in Education & Technology, 3(4).
Sani, M., Mahfouz, M., Bani, I., Alsomily, A., Alagi, D., & Alsomily, N. (2012). Prevalence of stress among medical students in Jizan University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Gulf Medical Journal, 1(1), 19-25.
Seun-Fadipe, C. T. & Mosaku, K. S. (2017). Sleep quality and academic performance among Nigerian undergraduate students. Journal of Systems and Integrative Neuroscience, 3(5). DOI:10.15761/jsin.10001 79.
https://doi.org/10.15761/JSIN.1000179
Shah, M., Hasan, S., Malik, S., & Sreeramareddy, C. T. (2010). Perceived Stress, sources and severity of stress among medical undergraduates in a Pakistani Medical School. BMC Medical Education, 10(1), 2. DOI:10. 1186/1472-6920-10-2.
https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-10-2
Stahle, T. (2015). Why women are more stressed than men. Retrieved May 16, 2019 from https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865626399/Why-women-are-more-stressed-than-men.html
Tan, S. C. (2018). Survey says: 9 out of 10 Malaysians suffer from sleep problems. Retrieved November 20, 2018 from https://www.star2.com/health/2018/05/17/malaysians-jsuffer-sleep-problems/
Theadom, A. & Cropley, M. (2008). Dysfunctional beliefs, stress and sleep disturbance in fibromyalgia. Sleep Medicine, 9(4), 376-381. DOI:10.1016/j.sleep.2007.06.005.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2007.06.005
The Setonian Editorial Board. (2018). College students aren't getting enough sleep. Retrieved November 19, 2018 from http://www.thesetonian.com/2018/09/19/college-students-arent-getting-enough-sleep/
Tsai, L. L. & Li, S. P. (2004). Sleep patterns in college students: Gender and grade differences. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 56(2), 231-237. DOI:10.1016/s0022-3999(03)00507-5.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-3999(03)00507-5
Yeoh, W. (2013). College student falls to her death. Retrieved March 11, 2021 from https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2013/08/29/college-student-falls-to-her-death-girl-believed-to-be-suffering-from-examstress/
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
