Medical students' behaviour, attitudes and knowledge of sleep medicine

R Mahendran, M Subramaniam, YH Chan
Correspondence: Dr Rathi Mahendran, Rathi_MAHENDRAN@imh.com.sg

ABSTRACT
Introduction A seminar on sleep disorders was recently introduced for third, fourth and final year medical students rotating through the psychiatry posting in the Institute of Mental Health. This survey was conducted to assess the attitudes as well as knowledge of medical students towards sleep medicine.
Methods Verbal consent was taken from the students who were willing to take part in the survey. The MED Sleep Survey, which is an inventory to assess behavior, attitudes and knowledge about sleep, was used to assess the same in the students.
Results A total of 240 medical students completed the survey. There were 149 male and 91 female medical students. In terms of their basic sleep knowledge, 46.7 percent scored between 1 and 10 points, 51.7 percent scored between 11 and 20 points, and 1.7 percent scored between 21 and 30 points. There was no significant difference between the different groups in their scores on basic sleep knowledge.
Conclusion Most of the medical students scored between 1 and 20 points on basic sleep knowledge items in part III of the survey. Of these, almost one-half had scores between 1 and 10 points. Education is clearly important, and the introduction of the teaching programme on sleep medicine is timely and necessary.

Keywords: attitutes, beliefs, medical students, sleep disorders, sleep survey
Singapore Med J 2004; 45(12): 587-589