Agreement rates between actigraphy, diary, and questionnaire for children's sleep patterns

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Sleep Medicine
• Chronobiology
• Research Methodology

Background:

• Accurate assessment of sleep-wake patterns in children is crucial for understanding development and identifying sleep disorders.
• Multiple methods, including actigraphy, sleep diaries, and questionnaires, are used to measure sleep, but their agreement is not well-established in young children.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare sleep-wake pattern measurements obtained from actigraphy, sleep diaries, and questionnaires in kindergarten children.
• To evaluate the agreement between these methods using Bland and Altman analysis.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 50 children aged 4-7 years.
• Data collected over 7 nights using actigraphy, sleep diaries, and a questionnaire.
• Analysis focused on sleep start, sleep end, assumed sleep, actual sleep time, and nocturnal wake time.

Main Results:

• Actigraphy and sleep diaries demonstrated satisfactory agreement for sleep start, sleep end, and assumed sleep (differences within +/- 32 minutes).
• Agreement was insufficient for actual sleep time and nocturnal wake time between actigraphy and diaries.
• Agreement between actigraphy/diaries and questionnaires was insufficient for all sleep variables.

Conclusions:

• Actigraphy and sleep diaries are interchangeable for assessing sleep start, sleep end, and assumed sleep in children.
• Sleep diaries offer a cost-effective method for sleep schedule information, while actigraphy is better for nocturnal wake times.
• Questionnaires are insufficient for accurately capturing children's normal sleep patterns.