title: Reliability of sleep diaries for assessment of sleep/wake patterns.
abstract: Although sleep diaries are widely used in clinical and research settings, only a few studies have compared the subjective information recorded in these diaries to objective information about sleep recorded. The goal of this study was to determine if a sleep diary could be used to obtain reliable data about home sleep/wake patterns over a 24-hour period. Fifty subjects (25 narcoleptic and 25 matched control subjects) completed a sleep diary while undergoing 24-hour ambulatory polysomnographic monitoring. The percentage agreement between the subjective data recorded in the sleep diaries and polysomnographic data was acceptable (kappa = .87). Sensitivity and specificity were also high (92.3% and 95.6%). The sleep diary is a reliable instrument for collecting data about sleep/wake patterns, but should be used with caution when collecting data from subjects who are likely to take frequent daytime naps.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Caruso
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Aldrich
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009290:Narcolepsy / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D017286:Polysomnography / Q000592:standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012890:Sleep; D014851:Wakefulness