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Published on: August 8, 2019
How Does the Sleep Regularity Questionnaire Relate to Wearable- and Diary-Derived Sleep Regularity?
Matthew Driller1, Michael E Bodner2, Alyssa Fenuta2
1Sport, Performance, and Nutrition Research Group, School of Allied Health, Human Services, and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Journal of Circadian Rhythms
|May 18, 2026
Summary
The Sleep Regularity Questionnaire (SRQ) has modest agreement with sleep diaries but weak correlation with wearable device data for measuring sleep regularity in healthy adults. It may supplement, not replace, objective sleep monitoring.
Area of Science:
- Sleep Science
- Chronobiology
- Health Informatics
Background:
- Sleep regularity is a crucial aspect of sleep health, yet it is often under-measured.
- Objective measures of sleep regularity (e.g., actigraphy, wearables) are accurate but resource-intensive.
- The Sleep Regularity Questionnaire (SRQ) is a brief subjective tool, but its validity against objective and diary data is not well-established in healthy adults.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the convergent validity of the Sleep Regularity Questionnaire (SRQ) against objective (smart ring) and subjective (sleep diary) measures of sleep regularity in healthy adults.
- To assess the association between SRQ scores and other sleep health indices like perceived sleep quality (B-PSQI).
Main Methods:
- Part 1: 31 healthy adults wore a smart ring for 21 nights, collecting objective sleep regularity data (SRI, IS, SJL, CPD).
- Part 2: 52 healthy adults completed a one-week sleep diary, providing subjective sleep timing variability, total sleep time (TST), social jetlag (SJL), and perceived sleep quality.
- All participants completed the SRQ and the Brief Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (B-PSQI).
Main Results:
- SRQ scores showed small associations with device-derived sleep regularity metrics (absolute r ≤ 0.36).
- SRQ Global and Sleep Continuity scores moderately correlated with better B-PSQI scores (r -0.37 to -0.44).
- In diary data, SRQ Global and Circadian Regularity showed modest associations with higher sleep quality and lower bedtime variability, but weak correlations with other metrics.
Conclusions:
- The SRQ demonstrates modest convergent validity with diary-based measures of sleep timing variability and perceived sleep quality.
- Correspondence between the SRQ and smart ring-based sleep regularity indices is weak.
- The SRQ may serve as a complementary tool to objective monitoring for healthy adults with regular sleep patterns, rather than a replacement.
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