General Sleep Disturbance Scale: Translation, cultural adaptation, and psychometric properties of the Italian version

ABSTRACT

Objective: The aim of this study was to translate, culturally adapt, and test the psychometric characteristics of the General Sleep Disturbance Scale (GSDS) and to detect and explore the presence of sleep disorders in the healthy Italian population.

Methods: Reliability was assessed through Cronbach’s alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient; concurrent validity was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).

Results: The scale was administered to 426 subjects recruited all over Italy. The Italian GSDS was found to have good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α was 0.77) and a good test-retest reliability (ICC of 0.78). The optimal cut-off point for the GSDS-IT was 38.5.

Conclusion: The GSDS-IT is a valid and reliable tool, which can be completed in less than five minutes and is a noninvasive method for measuring sleep disturbances consistent with the DSM-V insomnia criteria, during a past week.

KEYWORDS:

• Sleep disorders
• healthy population
• insomnia
• Italy
• reliability
• validation study

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge those who participated in the surveys; their collective expertise greatly informed the development of the Italian version of the GSDS.

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare no conflict of interest.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.

Statement of Ethics

The authors certify that all applicable institutional and governmental regulations concerning the ethical use of human volunteers were followed during the course of this research.