Who's happy among preclinical medical students: the influence of chronotype preferences

https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2020.1761373

Commentary

This study investigated the relationship between depression and chronotype.

Most studies and systematic reviews that have examined the psychological health of medical students have investigated the negative aspects of depression and anxiety. And the evidence from these studies suggested that depressive symptoms were common among medical students. They also found that people with the evening chronotype were considered to be at higher risk for developing depression, but no studies had investigated this association.

The objectives of this study were to.

(a) Evaluate the well-being of Turkish preclinical medical students and its predictors.

(b) Identify chronotype preferences.

(c) To determine whether these predictors mediate the relationship between chronotype and well-being.

This was the first step in the process.

A sociodemographic and clinical data collection form, the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire Short Form (OHQ-SF), was used, and the Morning and Evening Questionnaire (MEQ) was used to collect the data.

In this cross-sectional study, 564 students completed the questionnaire appropriately. The mean age was 19.89±1.37 years (range: 17-26 years) and the mean total OHQ-SF score was 23.09±4.23. The results showed that female students were considerably happier than male students. (p = .042)

The distribution of chronotypes did not differ by gender as 6.7% of the students were found to be morning types, 66.7% were intermediate types and 26.6% were evening types. (p = .085) Evening type students had significantly lower OHQ-SF scores than morning (p <.001) and intermediate types (p <.001), and MEQ scores were positively correlated with OHQ-SF scores.

Multivariate analysis also showed that gender, perceived economic resources, physical activity, depressive and stressful life events diagnosed in the past 12 months and chronotype were predictors of well-being.

These six variables explained 15 percent of the total variance in well-being.

The conclusions showed that individuals of the evening type exhibited less happiness compared to individuals of the morning type, and the middle type.