Insomnia-related safety behaviors are behaviors that aim to mitigate the negative consequences of insomnia but inadvertently perpetuate insomnia. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a Chinese short-form of the sleep-related behavior questionnaire (SRBQ-SF), a self-report measure of insomnia-related safety behaviors, using item response theory. The Chinese version of the original SRBQ was completed by 536 Chinese-speaking adults with clinically significant insomnia. The automatic item selection procedure of the Mokken scaling analysis was used to develop and evaluate the SRBQ-SF. A 23-item SRBQ-SF consisting of a 14-item reduced engagement and avoidance subscale (SRBQ-REA) and a 9-item preoccupation with sleep subscale (SRBQ-PS) was derived. Classical test theory-based estimates showed that the SRBQ-REA and SRBQ-PS had good internal consistency and acceptable convergent and discriminant validities, and they were only weakly correlated with each other. We recommend the use of the SRBQ-REA and SRBQ-PS separately to assess two dimensions of safety behaviors in the study and treatment of insomnia in Chinese-speaking adults.
Keywords: insomnia; item response theory; psychometric; safety behavior; scale.