Sleep duration and its relationship with school performance in Iranian adolescents

Inadequate or poor sleep quality is common problems in adolescent that affect on their learning, memory and school performance. The present study aimed to determine the association between sleep hours and academic performance in young adults.

This cross-sectional study was designed as a descriptive-analytic study. Samples of adolescents of 14-18 years old in Qazvin city were enrolled. The Pediatric sleep questionnaire and BEARS questionnaire used for all students to screen comprehensively major sleeps problems in them. Chi-square test, t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and correlation were performed to determine the relationship between the data (P < 0.001).

Between 653 adolescents, 40% were male and 60% were female. Sleep duration, sleep onset delay, sleep insufficient, rate of oversleeping and academic performance had a direct relationship with gender (P < 0.001). The sleep duration, rate of oversleeping and academic performance were significantly higher in boys, sleep onset delay and sleep insufficient was significantly higher in girls. Time of falling sleep at weekend nights and weekday nights have positively correlation with age (P < 0.001). Also, a significant relationship between students' sleep hours with academic performance was shown (P < 0.001).

The overall result was that sleep duration, sleep onset delay, sleep insufficient and rate of oversleeping of students in this study had a significant influence on academic performance. Students without difficulty in falling asleep had good academic performance in compared to students with difficulty in falling asleep.