ASSESSING SLEEP QUALITY AND FACTORS AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN VISITING ANTENATAL CARE; IN ARMED FORCES HOSPITAL – DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA HOW PREGNANTS SLEEP!

Background: Sleep is one of the daily important needs for physical, psychological and mental health for all individuals. During pregnancy, sleep disturbance is commonly happened, even with women with normal sleep previously.

Aim: To assess quality of sleep-in pregnant women and associated factors.

Methods: This study was a cross-sectional including 148 participants, conducted in Dhahran city by distributing a validated self-constricted questionnaire among pregnant women attending Antenatal Clinic in Armed forces hospital during 2021.

Results: One hundred forty-eight pregnant women participated in this study.  most of (the cases 62 (80.5%) stated fairly good sleeping quality and 137 (97.9%) never use sleeping pills, where the mean scores of “Minutes needed to fall asleep each night” and “Hours of sleep/night” were 21.9±18.3 and 8.2±1.9. The mean of the global score was 4.5±2.4 indicating good sleep quality. No significant difference was found regarding demographic data except using of hypnotic medication before pregnancy, where those who receive had higher score than those who didn’t receive (9.0 vs 4.4, p=0.027).

Conclusions: Most of the cases stated fairly good sleeping quality, where, the mean of the global score indicated good sleep quality. Using hypnotic medication before pregnancy showed higher score than those who didn’t use indicating problem in sleeping. Further nation-wide studies on the assessment of sleep quality and prevalence among pregnant women and associated factors need to be conducted in larger sample size and regions other than Dhahran.

Keyword: Sleep quality and prevalence, Pregnant Women, Knowledge, Antenatal care, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire.