BACKGROUND:

Sleep disturbances constitute an important health problem. However, a valid and reliable sleep scale designed for Mexican elementary school-age children is not currently available.

OBJECTIVE:

To design and to validate a self-report scale for sleep disturbances in school- age children.

METHODS:

Participants were recruited by convenience sampling from public elementary schools in Yucatán, México. Participants were divided in two groups, the first took part in the initial phase of the scale development and the second, were children to whom the final version of the instrument was applied. The instrument was developed in two phases. The first one included the design and application of the pilot test. During the second phase the factorial structure of the scale was obtained as well as the prevalence of sleep disturbances of the sample. The principal components analysis and Cronbach’s alpha analysis were used to determine the internal consistency of the scale. The final version of the scale includes 25 items.

RESULTS:

We included 838 children from six elementary schools, from which 524 took part in the validation process of the scale. This group included children between the third and sixth grades of elementary school, 51.1 % were girls, with an average age of the total sample of 10.3 ± 1.3 years old. Statistical analysis showed 6 major components explaining total variance (47.8%): 1) difficulty initiating sleep (α = 0.77), 2); nightmares (α = 0.76); 3) nocturnal awakenings (α = 0.71); 4) daytime sleepiness (α = 0.69); 5) tiredness and difficulty waking up (α = 0.69); and 6) somnambulism (α = 0.69).

CONCLUSIONS:

Sleep Disturbances Scale for School-age Children is an instrument with appropriate psychometric properties which can be useful for screening sleep disturbances in the Mexican children population.