Paper
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Chronotype and the academic efficiency of nursing students
Arménio Guardado Cruz, Phd, Rehabilitation Nursing Department, Higher Nursing School of Coimbra, coimbra, Portugal
| Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to understand the relationship between the chronotype and the academic efficiency of nursing students |
| Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to understand the relationship between the chronotype and the sleeping habits of nursing students |
The circadian rhythms are present in different functions of our organism. However, the adaptation of individual to rhythmic alterations can depend on individual characteristics, namely, the CHRONOTYPE (morningness/eveningness). Knowing also that academic efficiency depends on various factors, some related to the family and school, but others to the student himself, we can ask: will the chronotype aspects together with the demands of the students timetable interfere with the academic efficiency and the sleeping habits of the nursing students?
METHODOLOGY This descriptive and correlated study sets out to learn the relationship between the chronotype, academic efficiency and the sleeping habits in an intentional non’ probabilistic sample of 176 nursing students (average age: 19,71 years; standard deviation: 1,237). We applied the sample to the Portuguese version of the “Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire” (Horne & Östberg, 1976) and a Sleeping Habits Questionnaire (of author) during theoretical teaching, outside the periods of evaluation or academic festivities.
RESULTS The morning types show better academic efficiency than the evening types (Anova, p=0.46; Pos Hoc – Tukey, p=0.043). We also observed significant differences between the chronotype dimensions and the “normal time of waking up” and “going to bed” during the week and during the weekend (Anova’s) and “going to sleep” (p = 0.047), “waking at night” (p= 0.024) and “going to sleep after waking” (p = 0.000).
CONCLUSION
These results suggest that the chronotype dimension could influence the sleeping habits and academic efficiency of nursing students. We need more studies to confirm this.
Perhaps, the organization of school schedules it must have in account the chronotypes differents of nursing students.
On the other hand, the chronocientific knowledge could be important for the intervention of the future nurses in the health domine (epidemiology, chronopatology, chronopharmacology), laboral area (shiftwork), education, sports and lazer (jet lag).