THE INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIC STRESS AND CAFFEINE DEPENDENCE ON SLEEP DISTURBANCES AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

The present study was conducted to find out the influence of academic stress and caffeine dependence on sleep disturbances among university students. In the current study‚ students aged 18-30 years who were enrolled in  HEC recognized universities in Rawalpindi Pakistan were assessed to evaluate the impact of academic stress and caffeine dependence on sleeping problems among students of Rawalpindi․ A cross sectional research design was adopted․ A simple random sampling technique was used to select HEC based universities for the present study and then through convenience sampling participants were selected. Questionnaires employed to assess academic stress and caffeine dependence‚ were the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PASS; Bedewy & Gabriel‚ 2015) and the Caffeine Use Disorder Questionnaire (CUDQ; Meredith et al․‚ 2013) ․ The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI‚ Buysse et al․‚ 1989) was used to assess sleep disturbances. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the relationship between the three variables․ Caffeine dependency had a meaningful positive correlation with sleep disturbances(r = ․278‚ p < ․01) ‚ and academic stress had a statistically nonsignificant correlation with sleep disturbances (r = -․071‚ p > ․05)․ The regression analysis revealed that academic stress and caffeine dependency accounted for 7.9% of the variance in sleep disturbances (R² = .079), and caffeine dependence was the only significant predictor, while academic stress did not contribute significantly.  This suggests that, while academic stress alone may have a limited effect, its combination with caffeine dependence can meaningfully lead to sleeplessness among university students. In order to lower sleep problems in university students, health services at the university may make programs to help students sleep better. Universities can control drinks with a lot of caffeine on campus. Public health groups can teach people about stress, safe caffeine use, and restful slumber habits for students.