title: Psychometric properties of an omnibus sleep problems questionnaire for school-aged children.
abstract: 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.
  
  
  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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.affiliation: Childrens Research Centre, Discipline of Paediatrics, University of Adelaide, King William Road, Adelaide 5000, Australia. sarah.biggs@monash.edu
authors.forename: S N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Biggs
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: van den Heuvel
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lushington
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012890:Sleep; D012894:Sleep Stages; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*