Development and standardization of Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) in the Indian language Kannada

A circadian rhythm is any biological process that displays an endogenous, entrainable, oscillation of about 24 hours; the rhythms driven by a circadian clock and sleep have been widely observed in plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria. The main aim of the current study was to translate and validate the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) to Kannada (MEQ-K).

The English version of MEQ was translated to Kannada using translation-back-translation method. Further it was given to 30 native Kannada speakers for content validation. The final MEQ-Kannada version was then administered on 93 normal native Kannada speakers. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 17.0 software. Statistics such as mean, standard deviation and variance and reliability statistics such as Cronbach's alpha score as well as item-total correlation were obtained.

RESULTS showed that, MEQ-K has a Cronbach's alpha score of 0.870 which is considered to be of good reliability. It was also observed that, even after deletion of any one item from the MEQ-K, the Cronbach's alpha score remained the same.

From the current results it can be stated that, MEQ-K is a reliable tool that can categorize Kannada speaking population into various circadian types.