Journal of Sleep Disorders & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

Sleep Medicine Knowledge among Medical Students in Seven Egyptian Medical Faculties

Nevin FW Zaki, Rana Marzouk, Osman I, Alamah HY, Zaied WS, Haggag A, Hassan A, Allam M, Saadeldeen O, Russell Rosenberg, Heidy Reiny and Ahmed S BaHammam

Introduction: Egyptian medical education system awards students the bachelor degree of medicine after six academic years and a rotating house-officer year. There are no structured sleep educative programs in Egypt.

Aim of work: This study aimed to assess the knowledge of Egyptian final year medical students and houseofficers about normal sleep and sleep disorders.

Subjects and methods: Medical schools distributed throughout Egypt were surveyed asking sixth year medical students (males and females) and house-officers to participate. Seven faculties of medicine were selected. To screen for knowledge on normal sleep and sleep disorders, the Assessment of Sleep Knowledge in Medical Education Survey was used; the participants were classified to low scorers versus high scorers depending upon their ability to answer 60% of the questions correctly. The participants were separated into comparative groups (males vs. females). 6th year students vs. house officers and according to their faculty location.

Results: A total of 726 participants completed the survey (52.8% males, 78.9% were 6th year medical students and 21.1% were house-officers). There was a statistically significant difference in the scores of the participants with regard to their Faculty location and gender, while no statistically significant difference was found with regards to the study year.

Conclusion and recommendation: Medical students in the screened Egyptian faculties possess poor
knowledge about sleep medicine, which reflects the deficient educative processes in this field of medicine. Medical faculties should provide better sleep medicine education through a formal sleep medicine degree-awarding program.