Subjective sleep measurement: comparing sleep diary to questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Sleep Medicine
• Psychometrics

Background:

• The sleep diary is considered the gold standard for self-reported sleep duration.
• Comparability between sleep diaries and sleep questionnaires remains uncertain.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare self-reported sleep duration between sleep diaries and questionnaires.
• To investigate if sleep disorders influence diary-questionnaire differences in sleep duration.

Main Methods:

• Compared sleep duration from 5,432 diary-questionnaire pairs in 1,516 adults.
• Analyzed overall, weekday, and weekend sleep durations using Welch's t-tests.
• Used linear mixed effects regression to assess associations between diary-questionnaire differences and participant characteristics, including insomnia symptoms and sleep apnea.

Main Results:

• Average diary sleep duration (7.76 hrs) was 41 minutes longer than questionnaire duration (7.07 hrs).
• Insomnia symptoms were linked to a 17-minute longer diary-reported sleep duration compared to questionnaires.
• Sleep apnea was not significantly associated with diary-questionnaire differences; female sex and poorer self-reported health were associated with greater differences.

Conclusions:

• Sleep diaries and questionnaires are disparate methods for assessing subjective sleep duration.
• Diaries generally report longer sleep durations than questionnaires.
• Insomnia symptoms may contribute to the greater perceived differences in sleep duration between these methods.