Evaluation of the relationship between anxiety levels and sleep quality of internal and surgical specialists

Sleep is a fundamental component of health, and its timing, duration, and quality are critical determinants of the effect of sleep on health. Healthy sleep is affected by many personal and environmental factors. There is widespread agreement that there is a positive relationship between sleep quality and anxiety. Physicians, especially those undergoing specialization training, have to cope with stress, anxiety caused by stress, and sleep deprivation, which have negative effects on their education and clinical performance. Sleep quality and anxiety levels are important for both the health of the employee and the health of the society and its effects on the health system. The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between anxiety levels and sleep quality among research assistants working in university hospitals or training and research hospitals in Turkey. This study is a descriptive survey study. A total of 400 research assistant physicians, 240 of whom are internal sciences and 160 of whom are surgical sciences, were included in our study between 19.04.2023 and 19.10.2023 in Turkey. The prepared sociodemographic data form, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were applied to research assistant physicians via Google survey. The BAI score mean was 17.74±11.99 and it was determined that the participants had moderate anxiety. It was found that the BAI score of the participants in the surgical sciences branch was higher (p<0.001). A statistically significant relationship was found between smoking and alcohol, years of work in assistantship, and having received specialization training in another branch before and the BAI scores (p=0.001, p=0.004, p<0.001, p<0.001, respectively). The PSQI score mean was 7.74±2.95 and it was determined that 84.8% of the participants had poor sleep quality. It was found that the PSQI score of the participants in the surgical sciences branch was higher (p<0.001). There was a statistically significant relationship between gender, marital status, living alone, smoking, years of work in residency, and having received specialization training in another branch before and PSQI scores (p<0.001, p=0.010, p=0.043, p<0.001, p=0.007, p=0.010, respectively). A positive and moderate statistically significant relationship was found between the participants' total BAI score and the total PSQI score (r=0.520, p<0.001). Sleep quality and anxiety level are important in terms of both the health of the employee and the health of the society and their effects on the health system. Therefore, we believe that more work and effort is needed to correct the negative factors related to this issue in order to provide a higher quality education and health service, and that more care should be taken in the surgical department research assistants. Key Words: Residency, Anxiety, Sleep