The effect of sleep duration and quality on academical success of the elementary school children in Kayseri Turkey

Objective: To assess the sleeping habits of primary school children and establish link between sleeping hours and academic achievement. Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted between April and June 2007, involving 2422 students of 6-8th grades in 12 primary schools located in Kayseri, Turkey. A questionnaire was presented to the students on the basis of probability sampling method. Academic performance was evaluated with regard to their school grades. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. Results: Of the total 2422 questionnaires distributed, 1966 (81.2%) were used for further evaluation. The mean sleeping period of the students during school days was 8.86±1.10 hours. The number of students having difficulty in waking up in the morning was 940 (47.8%), while 910 (46.3%) were confused when they woke up during the night, and the 886 (45.1%) had nightmares, while 609 (31.0%) were sleepy all day long. As the sleeping period increased, the probability of a mediocre achievement in science lessons increased by 1.33 fold and poor achievement increased by 1.57 fold. Besides, the probability of a mediocre achievement in mathematics lessons increased by 1.36 fold, and poor achievement increased by1.67 fold. For Turkish language lessons, these increases were found to be 1.40 and 1.60 respectively. Correlation analysis showed a significant negative relationship between sleeping time and successful scores in Turkish (r=-0.65, p 0.025) and science (r=-0.061, p 0.036) lessons. Conclusion: As the sleeping period increased, the academic achievement of the students was negatively affected. The academic success was low in children who felt sleepy throughout the day.