Promoting Mental Well-Being and Productivity Through Chamomile Tea (Matricaria Chamomilla L.) Consumption: Its Effect on Sleep Quality

Abstract

Final-semester health-science students may experience substantial sleep disruption while completing undergraduate theses, clinical requirements, examinations, and preparing for transition to professional practice. Chamomile is a widely accessible herbal intervention, but evidence in final-semester students and in the form of a standardized tea preparation remains limited. To determine the change in sleep quality following 14 days of chamomile tea consumption among final-semester students at STIKES Advaita Medika Tabanan, Bali, Indonesia. A pre-experimental one-group pre-test–post-test study was conducted among 36 final-semester students selected by total sampling. Participants consumed one chamomile tea bag (2 g) brewed in 240 mL of hot water 30–60 minutes before bedtime for 14 consecutive days. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) before the intervention and on day 15. The PSQI is an established instrument with published evidence of validity and reliability in its original validation study. However, its reliability was not independently reassessed in the present sample. Paired scores were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Before the intervention, 33 students (91.7%) had poor sleep quality, and the mean PSQI score was 10.69 ± 3.04. After the intervention, the mean PSQI score decreased to 6.03 ± 1.40, representing a mean reduction of 4.67 points (43.6%). The proportion of participants with good sleep quality increased from 8.3% to 38.9%. Thirty-three participants had lower post-test PSQI scores, none had a higher score, and three had unchanged scores. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test demonstrated a statistically significant paired difference (Z = −5.028, p < 0.001), with a large non-parametric effect estimate (r = 0.84). Fourteen days of chamomile tea consumption was associated with a statistically significant improvement in self-reported sleep quality among final-semester students at STIKES Advaita Medika Tabanan. The mean PSQI score decreased from 10.69 to 6.03, although most participants continued to experience poor sleep quality after the intervention. The findings indicate a substantial pre–post change in sleep quality but do not establish a definitive causal effect of chamomile tea.