A Non-invasive Technique for Sleep Quality Appraisal among Adults in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Access to cost effective tools that are readily available to evaluate sleep quality seems challenging whereas several self-reported questionnaires have been developed and found useful in this regards due to their low cost, their ability to be administered easily (online or in person to a variety of populations), and their explicitness. Monitoring sleep patterns and its related factors are essential and important to healthy living but there is little knowledge about the importance of sleep especially in many developing countries. Individuals still complain about not getting enough sleep at night even when they have the opportunity. This study developed a sleep questionnaire “SSQ326” (subjective sleep quality, on 3 categories, and 26 items) and compared it with existing self-reported questionnaires using a cross-sectional survey on a total 207 respondents. The outcome of the study recorded a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.735 with a validity of sensitivity 80.6% and specificity of 78.7%. The questionnaire was able to validate effect of ageing on sleep quality, nature of work on sleep quality which was in tandem with the positions of sleep literature that as we age, quality sleeps decreases. Likewise the result of the study showed that only 49.27% of the total population enjoyed 6 hours of sleep which shows that, there is critical gap in quality sleep been enjoyed. In conclusion, the questionnaire was able to give useful and reliable information about sleep quality appraisal from the study population and related matrices necessary for design considerations and research purposes.