Guðmundur Viggó Aspelund and Vaka Vésteinsdóttir
Introduction
Sleep is a vital factor in the lives of all individuals and has a wide array of impact concerning physical and mental health. The aim of this research was to create a short screening tool for sleep quality which should be able to differentiate between those that sleep well and those that do not. An emphasis was placed on conciseness, low response burden, and ease of use as currently there is no such sleep questionnaire available in Iceland.
Methods
The development of this questionnaire involved two studies. Study I included three distinct phases of determining which questions should be added to the questionnaire. The common themes of already existing questionnaires were summarized into items, which were compared to a summarization done by ChatGPT-4, and eventually underwent cognitive interviews (N = 21) with a focus on item clarity and comprehension. In Study II the selected items were administered online to participants in a probability-based panel (N = 652) and the data analyzed with exploratory factor analysis.
Results
The selection and subsequent evaluation of items in Study I resulted in a nine-item scale. Exploratory factory analysis (Study II) revealed one main factor and a second factor with factor loadings below the set cut-off criterion. The final scale consisted of six items loading on one factor with good reliability.
Conclusions
Further research is needed to evaluate the scale in real time use, accuracy of the questionnaire in identifying poor sleepers and determine necessary adjustments.
