TO COMPARE THE COGNITIVE ABILITY OF PRECLINICAL MEDICAL STUDENTS AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE WORKING DAY AND CORRELATE THIS WITH THEIR MORNINGNESS-EVENINGNESS STATUS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31674/mjmr.2019.v03i01.005Abstract
Introduction: Student’s cognitive levels have been implicated with their learning ability, whether they are the morning type or evening type. Morningness-eveningness refers to individual differences in circadian phase position of spontaneous sleep-wake rhythms and to subject alertness. Objective: To determine if there is an association between time of day and cognitive levels. Methodology: This project was a questionnaire study, and 137 volunteers were recruited from Year 2 preclinical medical students Batch 8 in MAHSA University. Pre-study, each research subject filled in a Student's Circadian Rhythm questionnaire. Word-finding crossword puzzles were used to estimate the cognitive level of subjects and were administered at two fixed times during a normal working day. Results: Our results indicate that 32.12% of the students are of the evening type, 9.49% are of the morning type and 58.39% of the students tested were neither morning nor evening types. We also found no relationship between their status (morning-type or evening-type) and their cognitive level, as most of the students performed better in the mornings. Conclusion: Our study has shown that the cognitive level is higher in the morning as compared to the evening in all types of students.
Keywords:
Cognition, Diurnal variation, Morningness-eveningness, Circadian RhythmDownloads
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