Background: Sleep is important in promoting optimal growth, health, and well-being while providing the highest opportunity for effective functioning in children. The high prevalence of sleep problems and their negative outcomes for children and parents reflect the need to design early screening tools that parents or professionals can use to assess sleep problems in the first 3 years of life. This study aimed to assess the reliability and validity of the Persian version of the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised (BISQ-R).
Method: The study used the standard method of questionnaire translation and back-translation from Persian to English. After sending the final version to the original author for approval, 10 experts evaluated the validity of the questionnaire using both quantitative and qualitative methods, and 20 parents of children commented on the reliability of the questionnaire. Twenty hospitalized children with a diagnosis of pneumonia and their mothers participated in the study.
Results: Moderate and high correlations (0.41-0.88) and significant relationships (P<0.05) were found between the items of the pre-test and post-test questionnaires. There were no statistically significant differences (p> 0.05) between the pre-test and post-test scores of the BISQ-R instrument (paired t-test), showing similar results in two consecutive tests that confirmed the stability of BISQ-R and its test-retest reliability.
Conclusion: According to the results, the Persian version of the BISQ-R questionnaire has acceptable validity and reliability; therefore, this questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument to assess children’s sleep and can be used for children aged 12 to 36 months in different environments