Abstract
Background: Sleep is important for physical and emotional health. Nursing students attend a rigorous program of study, which may impact sleep and academic performance. Purpose: Explore the impact of rigorous schedules and the COVID-19 pandemic on sleep habits and academic performance of nursing students. Method: A descriptive quantitative comparative study. Results: Pre-study Medical Surgical 2 grades from fall 2019 (89.66%) were compared to grades from spring 2020 (89.00%). Fall 2019 capstone student theory grades were 77%-100% pre-pandemic and 80%-100% in the spring 2020 during the pandemic. Students' good sleep quality in the fall of 2019 was 9.8%, and increased to 37.4% in the spring of 2020. Pre-pandemic outside school stressors were 75.0% and 91.5% during the pandemic. Conclusion: Spring semester of 2020 revealed increased stressors in students, yet sleep quality improved with no effect on academic performance. Grades in both semesters were similar and not impacted. Thus, despite increased stressors in spring 2020, pandemic sleep quality improved.