Adaptation of the visual analog sleep scales to Portuguese.

This article reports the adaptation of the Visual Analog Sleep (VAS) Scales developed to assess patients' perception about their sleep on the previous 24 hours. Original scales, translated to Portuguese and submitted to content validation, were tested for reliability and validity. Convenience sample was composed of 180 patients on the first postoperative day (mean age 39.3+/-12.3 years; 68.3% female). The Disturbance Scale was kept with 7 items (alpha=.80) and the Effectiveness Scale with 5 items (alpha=.78); both maintained the original structure. Item 13 (Wake after final arousal) had to be excluded from Supplementation Scale, that kept 3 out of its 4 items (alpha=.72). There was negative correlation between Disturbance and Effectiveness (r=-.68 p<.001), as it was expected. The adapted version is suitable to sleep assessment of postoperative patients. The behavior of the excluded item has to be analyzed with other samples.