Usefulness of Various Questionnaires in the Assessment of Excessive Daytime Sleepiness and Circadian Rhythm

Kim, M J

Abstract

Recently excessive daytime sleepiness was found to have relations with various social, occupational, and health problems. This condition is common symptom of several sleep disorders, among which sleep apnea syndrome is most contributive. It is essential to assess daytime sleepiness exactly for the diagnosis of such sleep disorders. Multiple sleep latency test which is a valid and objective measurement technique of sleepiness is time and cost consuming, and so there is increasing need of scales measuring general level of daytime sleepiness which are quick and simple to perform for clinical and research purpose. And also, there have been a lot of sleep researches viewing sleep as a chronobiological process, especially in the study of circadian type of shift workers. In these studies they used various techniques of multiple demensions to assess sleepiness or circadian rhythm which concerns various psychological variables. Of these measurement techniques circadian type questionnaires might have some problems in their psychometric properties. So some of these mornigness-eveningness questionnaires have been revised and more valid scales are being suggested by defferent authors. The author briefly reviewed various measurement techniques of sleepiness and circadian rhythm and introduced recently developed scales which are more valid allegedly, and finally discussed psychometric properties of these morningness-eveningness questionnaires.