Journal d'otologie et de rhinologie

Effect of Sleep-Disordered Breathing on Academic Achievement in Medical Students

Tsuguo Nishijima, Miki Umetsu, Keisuke Hosokawa, Yoshihiko Kasai, Susumu Takahashi, Tetsuya Kizawa, Fumitaka Mito, Akira Suwabe and Shigeru Sakurai

Effect of Sleep-Disordered Breathing on Academic Achievement in Medical Students

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSAS) is known to cause excessive daytime sleepiness, resulting in poor academic performance in young children. The present study aimed to determine whether OSAS influences the examination results in medical students. Methods: Of 95 fifth-year students under a 6-year medical program in our medical university, 94 were enrolled with one exception, who was accidentally absent in the clinical clerkship. All students were instructed to wear a monitoring device overnight at home. The device was retrieved the next day, followed by visual data analysis. Examinations used for the assessment of academic achievement were multiple-choice tests about medical and public health knowledge essential as physicians. They were composed of general questions, clinical questions, and compulsory questions. Results: Odds ratios (OR) of OSAS for poor achievement by each question type were 3.72 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.19-11.63; P = 0.05) for general questions, 9.18 (95% CI, 0.98-86.0; P = 0.07) for clinical questions, and 3.85 (95% CI, 0.85-17.3; P = 0.14) for essential questions. Conclusions: The results of this study suggested that OSAS may adversely affects the achievement of general questions, in which declarative memory is involved, in the medical student population.