The National Sleep Foundation's Sleep Satisfaction Tool

Objectives: The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) sought to test, refine, and add statistical rigor to its previously described provisional Sleep Satisfaction Tool (SST). The tool assesses the general population's sleep satisfaction.

Design: In 2017, NSF created a provisional tool through systematic literature review and an expert consensus panel process. This tool was expanded, refined, and tested through an open-ended survey, 2 rounds of cognitive testing, and a national survey of a random sample of Internet users (aged 18-90). Factor analysis and final consensus panel voting produced the robust SST.

Results: The exploratory, open-ended surveying for identifying additional factors important to the public led to question formulation around mind relaxation. Cognitive testing yielded significant refinement to question and response option formatting. Factor analysis of questions from field testing indicated loading on one construct identified as "sleep satisfaction." The final 9-item SST demonstrated strong reliability and internal validity with overall SST scores of 56/100 (higher scores indicating greater sleep satisfaction). Individual SST item mean scores ranged from 39 to 66, and overall SST scores varied substantially across demographic groups.

Conclusions: NSF used a series of development and validation tests on its provisional SST, producing a novel and reliable research tool that measures the general population's sleep satisfaction. The SST is a short, reliable, nonclinical assessment that expands the set of tools available to researchers that implements the individual, social, and environmental factors related to sleep satisfaction. Further research will explore refined scoring methods along with factor weighting and use within different populations.