Evaluation of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire in a Community and Clinical Population of Children and Adolescents

Abstract

Evaluation of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire in a Community and Clinical Population of Children and Adolescents Objectives: To evaluate the use of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) in a community and clinical population of children and adolescents and to record their sleep problems; to develop a Greek version of the CSHQ and to assess its psychometric properties. Methods: The CSHQ was translated in Greek and it was administered to the parents of 576 children aged 1 – 17 years. The community sample was drawn from schools, while the clinical from a Community Mental Health Center and a Pediatric Neurology Department of a Pediatric Hospital. Internal consistency was measured based on Cronbach's α. Differences in the scores were assessed by ANOVA followed by t-tests. Age-dependent analysis was performed for children younger than 4 years and older than 12 years in the clinical population. Results: Cronbach's α were 0.745 for the total and 0.708 for the community sample. Cronbach's α if item deleted ranged from 0.725 to 0.753. Cronbach's α of the subscales extended from 0.502 (sleep anxiety) to 0.735 (bedtime resistance). For children younger than 4 years, α was 0.732; for children older than 12 years it was 0.878. Conclusions: The Greek version of the CSHQ demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in community and clinical populations. Previous findings that CSHQ is a useful tool for toddler and clinical groups were confirmed. This is the first study to demonstrate satisfactory psychometric properties of the CSHQ in a clinical group of adolescents.