Development and psychometric evaluation of a new instrument for measuring sleep length and television and computer habits of Swedish school-age children.

ABSTRACT

The aim was to develop a new instrument for measuring length of sleep as well as television and computer habits in school-age children. A questionnaire was constructed for use when children visit the school health care unit. Three aspects of the validity of the questionnaire were examined its face validity, content validity, and construct validity. Test-retest reliability was assessed by giving the questionnaire twice, 2 weeks apart, to the respondents. The questionnaire was assessed as being reasonably valid, the test-retest results (n = 138) showing 90.4% of the estimates regarding bedtime on weeknights on the two survey occasions to lie within ± 30 min of each other, the test-retest agreement also being rather close (κ > .600) regarding both sleep and media habits. The instrument can be a valuable tool in a clinical setting, both for measuring sleep habits in a class and for discussing sleep with individual school children and their families.