Norm-referenced scoring system for the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire - Revised (BISQ-R)

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Sleep Medicine
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Infant and toddler sleep disturbances are common and can impact development.
• Existing sleep assessment tools may lack comprehensive, age-normed scoring.
• The Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire - Revised (BISQ-R) was developed to address these limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an age-based norm-referenced scoring system for the BISQ-R.
• To provide a standardized method for assessing infant and toddler sleep patterns.
• To evaluate the BISQ-R's utility across diverse datasets.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 33,835 caregiver submissions of the BISQ-R via a smartphone application.
• Creation of three subscales: Infant Sleep (IS), Parent Perception (PP), and Parent Behavior (PB).
• Application and validation of the age-based scoring algorithm on multiple independent datasets.

Main Results:

• The scoring algorithm was successfully applied and confirmed across various samples.
• Each subscale (IS, PP, PB) and total score (T) are age-referenced, ranging from 0 to 100.
• Consistent and convergent relationships were observed between subscales across studies.

Conclusions:

• The BISQ-R offers a comprehensive assessment of infant/toddler sleep, parent perception, and behaviors.
• The age-based norm-referenced scoring system is publicly available for research and clinical use.
• This validated scoring system enhances the utility of the BISQ-R for evaluating sleep outcomes.