BackgroundA solid diagnosis of sleep disorders in children should include both self-ratings and parent ratings. However, there are few standardized self-assessment instruments to meet this need. The Children’s Sleep Comic is an adapted version of the unpublished German questionnaire “Freiburger Kinderschlafcomic” and provides pictures for items and responses. Because the drawings were outdated and allowed only for qualitative analysis, we revised the comic, tested its applicability in a target sample, and suggest a procedure for quantitative analysis.MethodsAll items were updated and pictures were newly drawn. We used a sample of 201 children aged 5–10 years to test the applicability of the Children’s Sleep Comic in young children and to run a preliminary analysis.ResultsThe Children’s Sleep Comic comprises 37 items covering relevant aspects of sleep disorders in children. Application took on average 30 minutes. The procedure was well accepted by the children, as reflected by the absence of any dropouts. First comparisons with established questionnaires indicated moderate correlations.ConclusionThe Children’s Sleep Comic is appropriate for screening sleep behavior and sleep problems in children. The interactive procedure can foster a good relationship between the investigator and the child, and thus establish the basis for successful intervention if necessary.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.