Utility of subjective sleep assessment tools for healthy preschool children: a comparative study between sleep logs, questionnaires, and actigraphy.
BACKGROUND
Sleep pattern is an important factor in a child's mental, behavioural and physical status. To evaluate the sleep patterns of children, subjective tools such as sleep logs and questionnaires are still widely used in addition to objective methods of sleep assessment. Despite the established correlation between subjective and objective sleep variables, the characteristic features of subjective assessment have not been elucidated.


METHODS
To investigate the characteristics of parental sleep assessment (daily sleep log and brief questionnaire) in preschool children, a 7-day actigraphic sleep study was conducted in 48 healthy 5-year-old children.


RESULTS
Sleep schedule variables in the parental reports generally correlated well with actigraphic assessment of sleep patterns; however, sleep periods were longer in parental reports than in actigraphic recordings. Although the daily sleep log was better correlated with actigraphy, the brief questionnaire showed a good correlation with sleep pattern on weekday actigraphic assessments. Parental reports recorded fewer than 10% of the night wakings recorded by actigraphy.


CONCLUSIONS
Subjective sleep assessments remain useful, although their utility depends on the purpose and size of the study in question. However, knowledge of the potential biases and characteristics of such assessments is essential for correct interpretation of the data.
Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Tokyo, Japan.
Mizue
M
Iwasaki
Sachiko
S
Iwata
Akiko
A
Iemura
Natsumi
N
Yamashita
Yasushi
Y
Tomino
Tokie
T
Anme
Zentaro
Z
Yamagata
Osuke
O
Iwata
Toyojiro
T
Matsuishi
D056044:Actigraphy / Q000379:methods*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011996:Records; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012890:Sleep; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D014851:Wakefulness