Relationships Between Questionnaire Ratings of Sleep Quality and Polysomnography in Healthy Adults

This study aimed to examine the association between polysomnographic sleep and subjective habitual sleep quality and restoration from sleep. Thirty-one normal sleepers completed the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire and multiple home polysomnography recordings (n = 2-5). Using linear regression, sleep quality and restoration were separately analyzed as functions of standard polysomnography parameters: sleep efficiency, total sleep time, sleep latency, stage 1 and 2 sleep, slow-wave sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, wake time after sleep onset, and awakenings (n), averaged across recordings. Stage 2 and slow-wave sleep predicted worse and better sleep quality, respectively. Also, slow-wave sleep predicted less subjective restoration, although adjustment for age attenuated this relation. Our findings lend some physiological validity to ratings of habitual sleep quality in normal sleepers. Data were less supportive of a physiological correlate of ratings of restoration from sleep.