OBJECTIVE: There is a paucity of sleep questionnaires that have been psychometrically validated for use in school-aged children. Due to the limitation regarding the psychometric properties and the great variety in question design, there remains a need for a robust omnibus questionnaire that assesses sleep problems in community populations. This study aimed to develop such a questionnaire for school-aged children by assessing the construct validity and reliability of a questionnaire based on a combination of children's sleep domains from two frequently used and validated questionnaires (Habits Questionnaire and Sleep Disorders Scale for Children) and author devised questions. PATIENTS/ METHODS: Parents of 1904 children aged 5-10 years (mean 7.7 ± 1.7 years) from 32 elementary schools in Adelaide, South Australia, completed the questionnaire. RESULTS: Principal axis factoring revealed six unique sub-scales--Sleep Routine, Bedtime Anxiety, Morning Tiredness, Night Arousals, Sleep Disordered Breathing, and Restless Sleep--containing a total of 26 items. Internal consistency for sub-scales were moderate to strong (range α = 0.6-0.8) and test-retest reliability was adequate (>0.4). T-score cut-offs were devised for age and sex. CONCLUSION: The new questionnaire provides a robust set of sleep problem sub-scales which can be used for assessment of sleep concerns in a community sample as well as provide for optimal analysis of associations with other measures of childhood daytime functioning such as neurocognition and behaviour.
OBJECTIVE: There is a paucity of sleep questionnaires that have been psychometrically validated for use in school-aged children. Due to the limitation regarding the psychometric properties and the great variety in question design, there remains a need for a robust omnibus questionnaire that assesses sleep problems in community populations. This study aimed to develop such a questionnaire for school-aged children by assessing the construct validity and reliability of a questionnaire based on a combination of children's sleep domains from two frequently used and validated questionnaires (Habits Questionnaire and Sleep Disorders Scale for Children) and author devised questions. PATIENTS/ METHODS: Parents of 1904 children aged 5-10 years (mean 7.7 ± 1.7 years) from 32 elementary schools in Adelaide, South Australia, completed the questionnaire. RESULTS: Principal axis factoring revealed six unique sub-scales--Sleep Routine, Bedtime Anxiety, Morning Tiredness, Night Arousals, Sleep Disordered Breathing, and Restless Sleep--containing a total of 26 items. Internal consistency for sub-scales were moderate to strong (range α = 0.6-0.8) and test-retest reliability was adequate (>0.4). T-score cut-offs were devised for age and sex. CONCLUSION: The new questionnaire provides a robust set of sleep problem sub-scales which can be used for assessment of sleep concerns in a community sample as well as provide for optimal analysis of associations with other measures of childhood daytime functioning such as neurocognition and behaviour.
Authors: Sarah N Biggs; Gillian M Nixon; Margot J Davey; Diana C Cicua Navarro; J Declan Kennedy; Kurt Lushington; Rosemary S C Horne Journal: Sleep Breath Date: 2013-09-28 Impact factor: 2.816
Authors: James D Kean; Jordy Kaufman; Justine Lomas; Antionette Goh; David White; David Simpson; Andrew Scholey; Hemant Singh; Jerome Sarris; Andrea Zangara; Con Stough Journal: Nutrients Date: 2015-12-02 Impact factor: 5.717