title: Survey questions about sleep duration: does asking separately about weekdays and weekends matter?
abstract: There is no standard way to ask about sleep duration in surveys, and little is known about the comparability of different questions. This article reports on a randomized survey experiment designed to test 1 type of variation: 1 question about usual sleep hours versus 2 questions separately asking about weekday and weekend sleep. Mean sleep duration was significantly shorter (7.03 hr vs. 7.28 hr) for the single question than a weighted average from 2 questions, and race and ethnicity contrasts differed by question format. Correlations between sleep duration and reported sleep need were significantly higher for the 2-question format. These results demonstrate that question wording can affect reported sleep duration in complicated ways, making it difficult to compare studies that use different questions.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Health Studies , University of Chicago.
authors.forename: Diane S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Lauderdale
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003142:Communication; D003710:Demography; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D044469:Racial Groups; D011897:Random Allocation; D057566:Self Report; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult