Comparison of Psychological Distress and Aggressiveness in Students with Good and Poor Sleep Quality

Sleep problems are very common among students and can negatively affect their performance. The present study aimed to compare psychological distress and aggressiveness in students with good and poor sleep quality. This study was descriptive with a causal-comparative design. The statistical population of the study was all undergraduate students of the University of Kashan in 2018. Multi-stage stratified sampling was used to select 246 students (101 males & 145 females) from three faculties. The participants provided their demographic information and filled in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), and Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (AQ). Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was run in SPSS (version 22) to analyze the data. The results indicate that student with poor sleep quality, compared to those with sufficient sleep quality, experience higher levels of psychological distress including anxiety (p<.001), depression (p<.01), and stress (p<.01) as well as aggressiveness (p<.05). Therefore, low sleep quality could be accompanied by psychological distress and aggressiveness among students. Hence, it is necessary to consider designing and implementing comprehensive programs for improving students’ sleep quality as well as other interventions for enhancing their psychological wellbeing.