engleski

Sleep, anxiety, and cognitive and psychomotor abilities of medical students measured by tests of the Complex Reactionmeter Drenovac series

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study is to elucidate the relationship between sleep, anxiety, and reaction times and information processing in solving simple and complex cognitive and psychomotor tasks of the electronic psychodiagnostic test battery, Complex Reactionmeter Drenovac (CRD-series) in medical students. SUBJECTS AND METHODS A total of 168 students (49 men) from School of medicine, University of Split, completed following questionnaires: Sleep Habits questionnaire (SH), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) assessing daytime sleepiness, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) assessing subjective sleep quality, and State- Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) assessing anxiety. Cognitive and psychomotor abilities were measured by CRD-series tests: CRD311 (discrimination of the light signal position), CRD411 (complex psychomotor coordination), and CRD11 (simple arithmetic operations), in the sequence from the easiest to the most difficult. In each single test total test solving time (TTST) and minimum single task solving time (MinT) were analyzed. Statistical analysis of the data was performed in MedCalc for Windows, version 11.5.1.0 (MedCalc Software, Mariakerke, Belgium), and significance was considered at p<0.05. Comparison of the sleep habits between men and women was done by student’s t-test for independent samples. The relationship between CRD test results, sleep and anxiety was calculated by Pearson's correlation coefficient. RESULTS Significantly more women reported to be chronically tired (47.1% vs. 24.5%, p=0.007), to sleep less (6:35±1.08 h vs. 6:58±0:58h, p=0.024), and to have worse subjective sleep quality (p=0.023) than men. Increased state anxiety was associated with higher alertness (r=0.391, p<0.001), independently of sleep duration. Anxiety as a trait was increased in students with lower perceived sleep quality (r=0.417, p<0.001) and students with excessive daytime sleepiness (r=0.216, p=0.006), both independently of sleep duration. Among investigated variables, only excessive daytime sleepiness, and not the sleep quality, current alertness, nor anxiety correlated with results achieved on CRD tests: with TTST (r=0.168, p=0.033) and MinT (r=0.195, p=0.014) on CRD411 and with MinT (r=0.167, p=0.035) on CRD11 test. CONCLUSION The results highlighted the association between sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, alertness, and anxiety. However, sleep quality, alertness, and anxiety were not predictors of cognitive and psychomotor abilities, which were negatively affected only by daytime sleepiness in medical students.

sleep ; anxiety ; cognitive performance ; psychomotor performance ; Complex Reactionmeter Drenovac

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