A Brief Screening Questionnaire for Infant Sleep Problems: Validation and Findings for an Internet Sample

Objective: To develop and validate (using subjective and objective methods) a brief infant sleep questionnaire (BISQ) that would be appropriate for screening in pediatric settings.

Design: Two studies were performed to assess the properties of the BISQ. Study I compared BISQ measures with sleep diary measures and objective actigraphic sleep measures for clinical (N = 43) and control (N = 57) groups of infants (5-29 months of age). The second study was based on an Internet survey of 1028 respondents who completed the BISQ posted on an infant sleep web site.

Results: In study I, BISQ measures were found to be correlated significantly with sleep measures derived from actigraphy and sleep diaries. BISQ measures (number of night wakings and nocturnal sleep duration) were the best predictors for distinguishing between clinical and control samples. High test-retest correlations (r >.82) were demonstrated for BISQ measures for a subsample of 26 infants. Study II provided a developmental perspective on BISQ measures. The study demonstrated that BISQ measures derived from a large Internet survey provided developmental and sleep ecology-related findings that corresponded to the existing literature findings on sleep patterns in early childhood.

Conclusions: The findings provide psychometric, clinical, and ecologic support for the use of the BISQ as a brief infant sleep screening tool for clinical and research purposes. Potential clinical cutoff scores are provided.