A new diagnostic tool for children with sleep disorders

Background In addition to a parental evaluation, the diagnosis of childhood sleep disorders should include a child’s own assessment of sleep behavior. In order to address the lack of self-rating instruments for the assessment of sleep in young children, a new self-assessment tool was developed: the Children’s Sleep Comic. Here we present the first validation data. Materials and methods A sample of 112 children aged between 5 and 10 years was assessed with the Children’s Sleep Comic and the German version of the Sleep Self Report (SSR-DE). Parents completed the German version of the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-DE) and participated in a telephone interview based on the diagnostic interview for sleep disorders in children (DIKS). The diagnosed sleep disorders were compared to the children’s ratings in the Children’s Sleep Comic. Results Kuder–Richardson analysis demonstrated good internal consistency (α = 0.86). Initially, no correlation was found between the intensity of sleep problem score (ISPS) of the Children’s Sleep Comic and the presence of a diagnosis. Based on theoretical considerations and discriminatory power analysis, different subscores were then calculated for the symptoms of general insomnia and those of childhood behavioral insomnia addressed by the Children’s Sleep Comic. Comparisons with the corresponding diagnoses according to the DIKS now yielded significant correlations. Comparisons between the Children’s Sleep Comic and the SSR-DE, as well as the CSHQ-DE, also indicated significant moderate correlations. Conclusion The Children’s Sleep Comic can be used as a reliable self-rating instrument for children with insomnia. The adapted procedure for quantitative analysis of the Children’s Sleep Comic encourages further validation of the Children’s Sleep Comic.