A systematic review of studies on the prevalence of insomnia in university students

Objectives: Many studies have shown that insomnia is a common problem among university students, but there are wide variations in the prevalence of insomnia. In this systematic review, we aimed to explore the prevalence of insomnia among university students using scientific and conclusive methods.

Study design: A systematic review is designed to analyze the studies reporting on prevalence of insomnia among university students.

Methods: Systemic searches were conducted in PubMed, BioMed Central, EBSCO, ScienceDirect, Ovid LWW and Medline databases between January 2000 and July 2014, The Meta analyst software was used to calculate the prevalence rate of each study, the pooled means of prevalence rates and 95% CIs across studies were then calculated and presented.

Results: Seven articles that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected. The overall sample size in the current review was 16,478, with a minimum of 219 and a maximum of 10,322. The prevalence rates of the seven studies ranged between 9.4% (95%CI 8.8-10.0%) and 38.2% (95% CI 35.4-41.1%). Overall, the total students studied with a weighted mean prevalence of 18.5% (95% CI 11.2-28.8%), considerably higher than rates of 7.4% (95% CI 5.8-9.0%) reported in general population.

Conclusions: This review emphasized that insomnia prevalence in university students is considerably higher than that in general population, suggested that more attention should be paid to insomnia in university students.