Discrepancies Between Self-Reported Usual Sleep Duration and Objective Measures of Total Sleep Time in Treatment-Seeking Overweight and Obese Individuals.

To examine the agreement between actigraphy-estimated and self-reported sleep duration in obese individuals, we had 63 treatment seeking overweight/obese participants complete the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and report sleep duration for weekends and weekdays, and compared their reports to 7 days of actigraphy. Actigraph total sleep time correlated r = .20-.31 with self-report and the absolute discrepancy averaged 51-54 minutes. Only 20 of the 32 subjects (62.5%) classified as short sleepers (<7 hours/night) by actigraphy were similarly classified by self-report. Poor sleep quality was associated with greater absolute discrepancy between actigraphy and self-report. The weak correlations between self-report and actigraph should be considered in future efforts to increase sleep duration to promote weight loss in obese individuals.