TITLE: SLEEP QUALITY AND ITS CORRELATION WITH

PERSONALITY TRAITS AMONG UNDERGRADUATES

STUDENTS OF A NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY
Authors’ names- Dr. Champion Tobi Seun-Fadipe1 Dr. Kolawole Samuel Mosaku2
Authors’ contact details-
E-mail address: heavenlychamp@gmail.com1
Phones: +23480525571531, +2348037692418
Affiliation details: Department of Mental Health,1,2
Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex,
Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
No conflict of interest
 INTRODUCTION

• Sleep has been implicated in health and well-being.

• Poor sleep quality has been observed to have negative impact on

academic functioning, increase the risk for burnout and physical
and psychological problems.

• Recently, there is an interest in the exploration of the relationship

between sleep quality and personality traits.
 INTRODUCTION CONT’D

• It has been reported that low conscientiousness and high

neuroticism were the best predictors of poor sleep (i.e., poor
sleep hygiene, low sleep quality, and increased sleepiness)
(Duggan et al., 2014).

• Conscientiousness has been associated with better sleep quality

while Neuroticism has also been linked with poor sleep quality
(Gray and Watson, 2002).
 WHY THE STUDY?

• People high in neuroticism were likely to subjectively complain of

insomnia, even though polysomnographic measures indicated no
sleep abnormality (Dorsey & Bootzin, 1997).

• Similarly people high in neuroticism might also report poor sleep

quality because they are especially sensitive to or worry about
small deficits in sleep quality (Costa & McCrae, 1987).
 WHY THE STUDY CONT’D

• An increasing number of behavioral therapy intervention

trials seek to improve sleep quality by tailoring
interventions to individuals’ needs (Tan E et al., 2012)

• To the best of our knowledge, no study has been done in

this environment to explore this relationship hence this
study.
 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

• To determine the prevalence of poor sleep quality among

undergraduate students of the Obafemi Awolowo University
(OAU), Ile-Ife.

• To determine the correlational relationship between sleep

quality and personality traits among the students.

• To determine personality traits that will predict sleep quality

among the undergraduate students of OAU, Ile-Ife.
 METHODOLOGY
• A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted amongst
undergraduate students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-
Ife from second year to final year who are resident within
the school premises.

• Students who are not legally capable of giving consent (less

than 18years) were excluded from the study.

• A multistage sampling method by means of probability

proportionate to size (PPS) was used to recruit the study
participants with a sample size of 530.
 METHODOLOGY CONT’D
• A self-administered instrument including a questionnaire
on Socio-demographic characteristics, Pittsburgh Sleep
Quality Index (PSQI) and the 10-item Big Five Inventory
(BFI- 10) was used to assess socio-demographics, sleep
quality and personality traits.

• Ethical clearance was given by the Health Research Ethics

Committee, Institute of Public Health, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife.
 RESULTS
TABLE 1: DEMOGRAPHICS
Variables (N=500) Frequency Percentage
Age (years)
18-20 178 35.6%
21-23 202 40.4%
≥24 120 24.0%
Gender
Male 253 50.6%
Female 247 49.4%
Year of study
200L 159 31.8%
300L 83 16.6%
400L 184 36.8%
≥500L 74 14.8%
Number of courses done
≤5 164 32.4%
6-10 334 66.8%
>10 4 0.8%
 TABLE 2: SOME PSQI COMPONENT SCORES
Subjective sleep quality Very Good 186 (37.2%)
Fairly Good 252 (50.4%)
Fairly Bad 47 (9.4%)
Very Bad 15 (3.0%)

Sleep duration >7hrs 55 (11.0%)

6-7hrs 225 (45.0%)
5-6hrs 137 (27.4%)
<5hrs 83 (16.6%)
Sleep efficiency ≥85% 339 (67.8%)
75-84% 80 (16.0%)
65-74% 45 (9.0%)
<65% 36 (7.2%)
Sleep latency 0 210 (42.0%)
1 206 (41.2%)
2 70 (14.0%)
3 14 (2.8%)
 TABLE 5: FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH SLEEP QUALITY

Characteristic Good sleepers (N=249) Poor sleepers (N=251) Statistics (P value)

Age (years)
18-20 87 (34.9%) 91 (36.3% χ2=0.699 (0.705)
21-23 105 (42.2%) 97 (38.6%)
≥ 24 57 (22.9%) 63 (25.1%)

Gender
Male 122 (49.0%) 131 (52.2%) χ2=0.511 (0.475)
Female 127 (51.0%) 120 (47.8%)

Year of study
200L 69 (27.7%) 90 (35.9%) χ2=15.444 (0.004)
300L 40 (16.1%) 43 (17.1%)
400L 111 (44.6%) 73 (29.1%)
≥500L 29 (11.6%) 45 (17.9%)
 TABLE 5: FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH SLEEP QUALITY CONT’D
Characteristic Good sleepers(N=249) Poor sleepers (N=251) Statistics (P value)

Number of courses
≤5 92 (36.9%) 70 (27.9%) χ2=8.177 (0.017)
6-10 157 (63.1%) 177 (70.5%)
>10 0 (0.0%) 4 (1.6%)

Extraversion 5.58 ±1.73 5.60±1.70 t = -2.70 (0.007)

Agreeability 7.63±1.93 7.24±1.84 t = 2.33 (0.020)

Conscientiousness 7.47±1.91 6.88±1.82 t = 3.54 (<0.001)

Openness 6.88±1.49 6.59±1.52 t = 2.15 (0.032)

Neuroticism 4.90±1.96 5.36±1.73 t = -2.78 (0.006)

TABLE 6: MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION OF SLEEP QUALITY AND PERSONALITY TRAITS
Variables MODEL 1 β (Std. β. p) MODEL 2 β (Std. β. p)
Intercept 5.047 (0, <0.001) 5.387 (0, 0.001)
Year of Study -0.061 (-0.022, 0.626) -0.037 (-0.013, 0.762)
Number of courses 0.156 (0.093, 0.040) 0.162 (0.097, 0.028)

Openness -0.130 (-0.066, 0.213)

Conscientiousness -0.130 (-0.082, 0.067)
Extraversion 0.137 (0.079, 0.144)
Agreeability -0.092 (-0.058, 0.217)
Neuroticism 0.242 (0.151, 0001)
Model of Fit F (2, 497) = 2.397, p= 0.092 F (7, 492)= 5.280, P=<0.001)

Adjusted R2 0.006 0.057

 DISCUSSION
• Poor sleep quality is prevalent amongst the undergraduate
student population studied.

• Although all the personality traits were correlated with

sleep quality at the bivariate level, only Neuroticism
predicts sleep quality in the multiple regression model.

• This supports previous studies (Gray and Watson, 2002;

Williams and Moroz, 2009) which reported that
Neuroticism is the strongest predictor of sleep quality.
 STUDY LIMITATION

• It is subjective assessment. Therefore it is subject to bias.

• It is a cross-sectional study.

• Generalization of the results might be difficult given that the

study was carried out in only one center.
 CONCLUSION
• This study suggest that personality has to be explored in the
context of other factors (biological, psychological, social and
environmental factors) in the evaluation of an individual’s sleep
quality.

• Despite its modest contribution, intervention targeting

improvement in personality may have a public health
significance considering the high prevalence of poor sleep
quality and its potential consequences.

• Further studies are needed to explore personality traits as

predictors of sleep quality.
 REFERENCES

• Tan E, Healey D, Gray AR, Galland BC. Sleep hygiene intervention for youth aged
10 to 18 years with problematic sleep: a before-after pilot study. BMC
pediatrics. 2012
• Gray EK, Watson D (2002) General and specific traits of personality and their
relation to sleep and academic performance. J Pers 70: 177–206
• Duggan KA, Friedman HS, McDevitt EA, Mednick SC. Personality and healthy
sleep: the importance of conscientiousness and neuroticism. PloS one. 2014;
9(3):e90628
• Dorsey CM, Bootzin RR (1997) Subjective and psychophysiologic insomnia: An
examination of sleep tendency and personality. Biol Psychiatry 41: 209–216.
• Costa PT Jr, McCrae RR (1987) Neuroticism, somatic complaints, and disease: Is
the bark worse than the bite? J Pers 55: 299–316.
• Williams PG, Moroz TL (2009) Personality vulnerability to stress-related sleep
disruption: Pathways to adverse mental and physical health outcomes. Pers
Individ Dif 46: 598–603
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Dr. Boladale Mapayi

Mr. Adejuyigbe, Opeyemi Olalekan

Mr. Alebiosu, Victor Temitope

Miss Adeniran, Iyanuoluwa Aduragba

Mr. Akano, Oluwafemi Busayo

Ife Multidisciplinary Sleep Team
THANK YOU