Stress mediates and gender moderates the relationship between cultural intelligence and insomnia symptoms in International students.

As the number of international students continues to grow globally, insomnia symptoms have become a prominent challenge for this group. Although cultural intelligence (CQ), stress, and gender have often been discussed in relation to sleep health, the statistical pathways linking these variables among international students remain insufficiently examined. We conducted a cross-sectional survey using convenience sampling from May to June 2025. Two hundred international students completed measures of cultural intelligence (CQS), stress (DASS-21 stress subscale), and insomnia symptom severity (Insomnia Severity Index, ISI). Pearson correlation analyses and a moderated mediation model (SPSSAU Model 14; 5,000 bootstrap samples) were conducted, adjusting for age, nationality, duration of study, and language proficiency. Results showed that higher CQ was associated with lower stress, and higher stress was associated with more severe insomnia symptoms; the indirect association from CQ to insomnia symptoms via stress was statistically significant, while the direct association was not. Gender moderated the stress–insomnia symptoms association (index of moderated mediation = 0.10, 95% CI [0.01, 0.23]), with a stronger slope among males than females. Overall, CQ was related to insomnia symptom severity primarily through its association with stress, and the stress–insomnia symptoms link differed by gender. These findings should be interpreted as correlational and may inform future longitudinal and intervention research on gender-sensitive support for international students.