French validation of the sleep disturbance scale for children (SDSC) in young children (aged 6 months to 4 years)

Abstract

The sleep disturbance scale for children (SDSC) has been translated and adapted into several languages and its psychometric properties are good. Notably, a French version has been validated for 4- to 16-year olds. The objective of the current study was therefore to adapt and validate the SDSC for French young children (aged 6 months to 4 years).

Method: 421 French-speaking mothers of children aged between 6 months and 4 years completed the SDSC and the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ) which is specifically for young children. Of these, 105 children were diagnosed with sleep disorders (clinical group) during a sleep consultation, and 316 completed the SDSC and BISQ in a network of nurseries (control group). Several factor analyses were conducted to identify the most consistent factor structure for this sample.

Results: Three items from the previous version were deleted due to lack of clinical relevance for this age group. The best factor analysis revealed six factors, comparable to the Italian version of the SDSC for children: Disorders of Initiating Sleep, Disorders of Maintaining Sleep, Sleep Hyperhidrosis, Sleep Breathing Disorders, Parasomnias, and Non-Restorative Sleep and Excessive Somnolence. This psychometric structure is reliable and aligned with expert diagnoses. The convergent validity, and divergent and internal reliability were acceptable.

Conclusion: This study validates a 22-item SDSC for French young children. Coupled with some questions from the BISQ, the SDSC could therefore be used to facilitate the detection of sleep disturbances in children aged between 6 months and 4 years old.

Keywords: Children; French version; Questionnaire; Sleep; Sleep disturbance scale for children; Young children.