Introduction:

Sleep occupies almost a third of our life and thus is an important aspect of our life. It is essential to physical and mental growth and stability. Deprivation of sleep not only weakens physical and mental functions, lowers work productivity also could cause mental problems.

Aim of the study:

To describe sleep characteristics and sleep disturbances among female students in practical faculties of Assiut University in Egypt.

Subjects and methods:

A cross sectional study was conducted among 306 female students in Assiut University in Upper Egypt. Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection.

Results:

About 61% of the students slept about 6-8 hours per night, whereas 24.2% of them slept > 8 hours per night. Intermittent sleep was reported in 37.9% of them and 70% had daytime naps. 43.1% spent a long time to fall asleep.
Intermittent sleep was significantly associated with residing in university hostels (P =0.025),
short sleep time (<6 hours) (P = 0.002), spending long time to fall asleep (P <0.001) , presence of headache (P = 0.013), bad appetite (P = 0.001) and disturbed bowel habits (P = 0.030).

Conclusion:
Raising the awareness about good sleep quality by multidisciplinary approach is recommended.