International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | August 2023 | Vol 10 | Issue 8 Page 2759 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Francis J et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2023 Aug;10(8):2759-2765 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Academic passion, perceived stress and sleep quality evaluated among medical students of private medical colleges in North Kerala Joyal Francis 1 *, Aleena S. Aboobacker 1 , Arppana Thomas 1 , Bindu Mohandas 2 INTRODUCTION Passion is a strong inclination towards an activity that people like, that they find important, and in which they invest time and energy. 1 Passionate activities make one’s life worth living. 1 Passion provides inspiration, physical and mental well-being, meaning to life, and a reason to work hard, while also rewarding the mind with a positive impact. However, passion can have negative consequences. Obsessive passion causes stress and reduces sleep quality, thus affecting one’s personal and professional lives. Many other factors, like parental advice, peer pressure, relationships, etc., affect student’s decisions to choose a profession in addition to their own desires and interests. 2 According to several studies, the most significant stress-reducing component in life is passion. 3 It is crucial to have a generation of committed physicians who are always willing to serve mankind in order to build a better healthcare system. Due to its rigorous professional and academic standards, medicine is one of the most difficult academic fields. 4 Thus, medical students are at increased risk for stress and sleep disruption, most of them choose to shorten their sleep cycles, which regrettably has a number of negative effects, including a decline in neuro-cognitive and ABSTRACT Background: Passionate doctors are required for a better health care system. Increased professional and academic requirements increase risk of developing stress and sleep disruption. This study aims to determine the academic passion, stress and sleep quality among medical students and explore the associations among them, which helps to create awareness to improve the mental and physical health of future doctors. Methods: This cross-sectional study among 649 MBBS students was done at 3 private medical colleges in North Kerala during 2019-2020 using a semi-structured 31-item questionnaire containing 4 sections: socio-demographic information, academic passion, perceived stress, and sleep quality. Data collected in 30 minutes from study participants in campus setting was entered in MS excel and analyzed using SPSS-20. Result: A 61.6% were women and 38.4% were men. 48% had chosen the profession because of parental pressure, relatives and friends. 51% were passionate about the medical profession. 69% of students were under high perceived stress (mean PSI score 33.54±8.71 SD). 48% of students were poor sleepers (mean PSQI score 6.11±3.45). A 15.6% of participants relied on medication for sleep at least once a month. Passion showed a significant association with stress (p<0.001) and sleep (p<0.001). Passionate students had less perceived stress and lower sleep quality. Conclusions: Apart from one's own desire, other factors influenced students to choose MBBS. Only half of the participants were passionate. There is a high prevalence of stress and poor sleep quality among medical students. Passion has an imperative role in one’s life quality. Keywords: Academic passion, Perceived stress, Sleep quality, MBBS 1 KMCT Medical College, Kozhikode, Kerala, India 2 Department of Community Medicine, KMCT Medical College, Kozhikode, Kerala, India Received: 01 July 2023 Revised: 17 July 2023 Accepted: 18 July 2023 *Correspondence: Dr. Joyal Francis, E-mail: joyalfrancispj@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20232361