Introduction Sleep has played a very important role in maintaining our health with good
living quality therefore the aim of this study is to determine the pattern of
sleep duration, especially short sleep and its associated factors among
workers in a tertiary institution.
Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from January until May 2012 among
128 randomly selected Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre
(UKMMC) staffs. Data was collected using a guided standardized data sheet
which consist of three sections; (1):sociodemographic &socioeconomic, (2):
lifestyle and, (3): anthropometric measurement and sleep diary. Data entry
and analysis were done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
version 20.0.
Results Majority of the staffs had normal sleep duration (67.2%) followed by short
sleep duration (26.6%) and long sleep duration (6.3%). Simple logistic
regression analysis indicated that late night snacking was significantly related
to short sleep (cOR=3.47, 95% CI: 1.12, 12.23, p=0.048).
Conclusions Adequate sleep is important to maintain one’s health. Steps can be taken to
limit late night snacking in order to improve the sleep pattern in this study
population.