The µMCTQ: An Ultra-Short Version of the Munich ChronoType Questionnaire

Abstract

Individuals vary in how their circadian system synchronizes with the cyclic environment (zeitgeber). Assessing these differences in “phase of entrainment”—often referred to as chronotype—is an important procedure in laboratory experiments and epidemiological studies but is also increasingly applied in circadian medicine, both in diagnosis and therapy. While biochemical measurements (e.g., dim-light melatonin onset [DLMO]) of internal time are still the gold standard, they are laborious, expensive, and mostly rely on special conditions (e.g., dim light). Chronotype estimation in the form of questionnaires is useful in approximating the timing of an individual’s circadian clock. They are simple, inexpensive, and location independent (e.g., administrable on- and offline) and can therefore be easily administered to many individuals. The Munich ChronoType Questionnaire (MCTQ) is an established instrument to assess chronotype by asking subjects about their sleep-wake-behavior. Here we present a shortened version of the MCTQ, the µMCTQ, for use in situations in which instrument length is critical, such as in large cohort studies. The µMCTQ contains only the core chronotype module of the standard MCTQ (stdMCTQ), which was shortened and adapted from 17 to 6 essential questions, allowing for a quick assessment of chronotype and other related parameters such as social jetlag and sleep duration. µMCTQ results correspond well to the ones collected by the stdMCTQ and are externally validated by actimetry and DLMO, assessed at home (no measure of compliance). Sleep onset, midpoint of sleep, and the µMCTQ-derived marker of chronotype showed slight deviations toward earlier times in the µMCTQ when compared with the stdMCTQ (<35 min). The µMCTQ assessment of chronotype showed good test-retest reliability and correlated significantly with phase markers from actimetry and melatonin (DLMO), especially with measurements taken on work-free days. Because of its brevity, the µMCTQ represents an ideal tool to estimate individual internal time in time-critical contexts, from large cohort studies to individualized medicine.

COVID-19: Public Compliance with and Public Support for Stay-at-Home Mitigation Strategies

“…[5][6][7][8] When required, validated instruments were adapted, including the Horne and Östberg Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) for chronotype assessment, the μshort Munich ChronoType Questionnaire (μMCTQ) for chronotype and sleep behavior assessment, Obstructive Sleep Apnoea 50 (OSA50) for obstructive sleep apnea risk assessment, single-item physical activity measure, and Hurt-Insult-Threaten-Scream (HITS) screening tool for domestic violence. [9][10][11][12][13][14]…”

Chronotype and Social Jetlag - a (self-)critical review

“…Additionally, we recently developed and validated a short version (only 6 questions) of the MCTQ: the µMCTQ [18]. This shortened version will be especially useful for big-scale studies that aim to collect extensive data sets from large samples and have to minimize burden on subjects.…”

“…The MCTQ-chronotype and its assessment of sleep phase have been validated against biochemical biomarkers, such as dim-light melatonin onset (DLMO) [18,[40][41][42] and cortisol [42], and objective behavioral measures of circadian phase (activity acrophase, and sleep behavior from logs or actimetry) [18,43,44]. They are all significantly correlated with MSFsc as one would expect if they are all valid biomarkers for phase of entrainment (the system state) and thus vary more of less together.…”

“…If sleep on free days is indicative of (or close to) a person's general phase of entrainment (if such even exists), then one can picture sleep times under constraints of working times to be "unnatural" or "against the Body Clock", and the difference between the unconstrained and constrained sleep times should be a good approximation of "how much one lives against one's Body Clock". However, evidence from controlled studies that mirror 'real life' and actual real-life studies has been accumulating that typical physiological circadian phase markers in humans (such as melatonin and cortisol) move in conjunction with advanced or delayed sleep times quite rapidly [18,[83][84][85][86][87] -be it through changes in external input via light-dark-cycle changes or through internal control mechanisms. Since this indicates that the circadian system does not remain in the same state throughout the week but changes with the shifting sleep times, one can assume that the original SJL concept quantifying the discrepancy between the social and biological time may be too simplistic.…”

“…Recommendations in the lay press go as far as telling people to get up as early on weekends as during their work week. Although weekend recovery sleep is probably not sufficient for preventing all the shortcomings caused by insufficient sleep over the week [91] and may also delay circadian phase [83,84,18,85,86], it nonetheless seems to prevent the worst: a large cohort study recently found that people with short sleep duration during workdays have a higher mortality rate if they get no catch-up sleep on weekends than if they do [92]. The study unfortunately did not assess associations with sleep timing.…”