Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: Morningness and eveningness is a phenomenon which looks at the differences among individuals regarding their diurnal preferences, sleep-wake pattern of activity, and alertness in evening or morning. Morning chronotypes are known to exhibit better physical and mental health, greater self esteem and academic performance. Evening chronotypes has been to be associated with several mental disorders, infection prone and have poor sleep quality. Students of Medicine have an average of sleep duration of 6 hrs per day in contrast to 8 hrs of sleep which is seen in other groups. Objectives: To study the morningness eveningness preferences among first year medical students. Methodology: With the approval of Institutional ethical committee this cross sectional study was carried out among 130 first year medical students of 2014-15 batch. Informed consent was taken and the British version of the Horne and Ostberg questionnaire was administered. Confidentiality was maintained and the recorded responses were analyzed using Microsoft excel and Epi Info 7. Results: 34.61% (45) of the study population belong to moderate evening category and 13.07% (17) to definite evening category. Ours study also reveals that 9.23% (12) belong to neither of the morning or evening categories. Our results also show that 26.15% (34) belong to definite morning types and 16.92% (22) belong to moderate morning types. Conclusion: Our study shows that the study population which is first year MBBS students show more inclination towards eveningness. Scheduling of academic activities based on the chronotypes will help the students to improve upon their academic performance.