Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4(1):93-97
© 1981 Raven Press. New York
Short Report
There are several ways that sleep can be investigated, including continuous
electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram recordings, visual observation,
interviews, questionnaires, sleep logs, and diaries (Johns, 1971, 1975). All of them
have inherent advantages and disadvantages. For example, EEG recordings are
invaluable in assessing the effects of drugs on the phases of sleep (Oswald and
Priest, 1965; Priest, 1978) and in avoiding the deliberate or unconscious distortion
that can occur with SUbjective reports. However, EEGs are expensive to perform
and do not lend themselves to large surveys.
In at least some populations, SUbjective reports correlate significantly with
objective assessments (Lewis, 1969; Johns, 1977; Johns and Dore, 1978) and the
estimates change in the same direction as the objective measures. The methods
93
94 B. W. ELLIS ET AL.
METHOD
A total of 93 subjects completed the St. Mary's Hospital (SMH) Sleep Ques-
Note: Sex ratio (F/M). 25/69. Figures after decimal points represent
fractions of hours (not minutes).
a p < 0.002.
b P = 0.11.
Kendall's tau (b), where unity is represented as 1.00. All probability values are p < 0.001 except
as indicated.
RESULTS
The questionnaire proved to be acceptable to the patients and was completed
satisfactorily despite varying degrees of physical impairment and psychological
disturbance (Ellis and Dudley, 1969; Dudley, 1969). The results are presented in
Table 1.
The scores obtained on initial testing were correlated with those obtained in the
second administration in Table 2. All correlations on the total sample were statis-
tically highly significant (p < 0.0001). The lowest correlations were found in
responses to the very subjective questions 9 and 11 and the highest with the more
discrete questions 1 and 4.
DISCUSSION
It was anticipated that the psychiatric patients would prove to be the least
reliable. This was not always the case. The normal volunteers were usually the
most reliable of the groups (and never the least reliable). The least reliable group
was the surgical for five questions, the medical for seven, and the psychiatric for
two. For three questions, the psychiatric group was the most reliable.
In the total sample the reliability of the items (as judged by Kendall's tau) varied
from 0.70 to 0.96. Broken down by groups, the correlation coefficients showed a
much wider range, but these figures should be regarded with considerable reserve
at this level in view of the smaller numbers resulting from this procedure.
The SMH Sleep Questionnaire has already been used successfully to detect
changes in the sleep pattern of 100 surgical patients during their stay in hospital
(Murphy et al., 1977). Further work should include factor analysis of data from
various populations.
Night Number W 7
Today's date: ----.l----.l_ _
,........II.....,.'~I.............113
Age: ____ Yrs.
Sex: Male / Female (delete whichever inapplicable) (M 1;F 2)
WIS
= U 16
12. Were you troubled by waking early and being unable to get off to sleep
again? (tick box)
1. No D
2. Yes D W58
13. How much difficulty did you have in getting off to sleep last night?
(tick box)
1. None or very little D
2. Some D
3. A lot D W60
4. Extreme difficulty D
14. How long did it take you to fall asleep last night?
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1977.
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