The Cleveland Adolescent Sleepiness Questionnaire: A new measure to assess excessive daytime sleepiness in adolescents

Abstract

Study Objective: Developed the Cleveland Adolescent Sleepiness Questionnaire (CASQ), a brief, self-completed instrument to measure excessive daytime sleepiness in adolescents. Design: Cross-sectional analysis. Participants: A subsample of 411 adolescents 11-17 years of age recruited from area schools, churches, and "control" participants in a sleep disordered breathing cohort study; a second subsample of 62 adolescents with diagnosed sleep disordered breathing also participating in the sleep disordered breathing study. Measurements: Participants completed the CASQ along with two other available measures of daytime sleepiness and other sleep parameters (sleep duration on school nights, sleep duration on non-school nights, and sleep debt, defined as non-school night sleep duration minus school-night sleep duration). Demographic information was obtained from a caregiver-completed questionnaire. The CASQ was developed using exploratory factor analysis, followed by confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling techniques. Results: Goodness-of-fit measures for the final 16-item scale structure ranged from good to excellent. The CASQ's internal consistency was good (α = 0.89). Correlations between the CASQ, two other measures of daytime sleepiness, and sleep parameters gave preliminary evidence of the CASQ's construct validity. Conclusion: The CASQ shows promise as a valid measure of daytime sleepiness in adolescents.