Comprehensive assessments of long-term sleep habits in epidemiological study: Validity and reliability of sleep factors questionnaire (SFQ) among Chinese women

J Psychosom Res. 2017 Apr:95:12-18. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2017.02.005. Epub 2017 Feb 10.

Abstract

Objective: Epidemiological studies suggested that poor sleep is a potentially novel risk factor for several health outcomes currently; however, there are no validated questionnaires that can systematically measure sleep parameters within these studies. We evaluated the reliability and validity of 17-item sleep factors questionnaire (SFQ), which was developed to comprehensively assess long-term sleep habits for the Jiujiang Breast Cancer Study (JBCS), Jiujiang, China.

Methods: The participants included 100 women aged 18-74years, who were randomly selected from the JBCS project, and completed a SFQ at baseline and again 1year later, and 4 quarterly 30 consecutive days (a total of 120days) sleep diaries over this same year. Reliability was tested by comparing the 2 SFQs; validity by comparing the average measures between the SFQ and the 4 sleep diaries.

Results: Validity analysis showed moderate correlation (γ=0.41) for sleep duration with the adjusted concordance correlation coefficient (CCCadj) of 0.54; the weighted κ statistics indicated an excellent agreement for night/shift work and sleep medication use; fair-to-moderate for sleep quality, light at night (LAN), nighttime sleeping with light on, sleep noise and nap time; slight-to-fair for sleep quality and nighttime wakings frequency. Reliability analysis showed excellent correlation for night/shift work and sleep medication use; fair-to-moderate for LAN, nighttime wakings frequency, insomnia frequency, sleep noise and nap time; but slight-to-fair for insomnia frequency and nighttime sleeping with light on; the CCCadj for sleep duration was 0.61.

Conclusions: The SFQ showed reasonable reliability and validity for sleep assessments in most domains.

Keywords: Reliability; Sleep duration; Sleep factors questionnaire; Sleep quality.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Breast Neoplasms / diagnosis
  • Breast Neoplasms / epidemiology
  • China / epidemiology
  • Epidemiologic Studies
  • Female
  • Follow-Up Studies
  • Habits*
  • Humans
  • Medical Records / standards*
  • Middle Aged
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Risk Factors
  • Sleep / physiology*
  • Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / epidemiology*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires / standards*
  • Time Factors
  • Young Adult