Estimating child sleep from parent report of time in bed: development and evaluation of adjustment approaches.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate adjustment factors to convert parent-reported time in bed to an estimate of child sleep time consistent with objective measurement. METHODS: A community sample of 217 children aged 4-9 years (mean age = 6.6 years) wore actigraph wristwatches to objectively measure sleep for 7 days while parents completed reports of child sleep each night. After examining the moderators of the discrepancy between parent reports and actigraphy, 3 adjustment factors were evaluated. RESULTS: Parent report of child sleep overestimated nightly sleep duration by ∼24 min per night relative to actigraphy. Child age, gender, and sleep quality all had small or nonsignificant associations with correspondence between parent report and actigraph. Empirically derived adjustment factors significantly reduced the discrepancy between parent report and objective measurement. CONCLUSIONS: Simple adjustment factors can enhance the correspondence and utility of parent reports of child sleep duration for clinical and research purposes.