Sleep diary
A sleep diary, often referred to more accurately as an evening - morning Protocol, is a record of sleep and wake times and further, in conjunction with sleep -related information. It is usually performed at home by the victim himself or a caregiver for a period of two weeks or more. It is customary to record the information by handwritten entry in forms.
Use of sleep diaries
Eve morning protocols are in sleep medicine is of fundamental importance and are used in the diagnosis and also for the post at various sleep disorders, especially in insomnia, hypersomnia and circadian sleep-wake rhythm disorders.
Although subjectively recorded data with the values determined by polysomnography values especially in patients with insomnia match is limited and the instrument is available to the effect that intra-individually over time the data equally well as maps apparatus measuring methods. While there are studies on reliability and validity of the instrument, but a normalization lacks.
Content of sleep diaries
A normalized template does not exist. Usually, the questionnaires from a completion instructions, as they are filled out at home, a questionnaire about the person and the sheet for the daily entries. Separately unique personal information ( name, size, weight), the type of sleep problems ( one- or staying asleep, daytime sleepiness, the beginning of the symptoms) and medication taken to be inquired. This will be followed for a period of one - week or two questions to be answered in the evenings and on the following morning.
Every evening before turning off the light entries to date, the being ( tense to relaxed), the performance of elapsed days (good to bad), the degree of exhaustion, additional sleep episodes per day, alcohol consumption and the time are requested.
Every morning, information on the estimated time to fall asleep, nocturnal waking hours, the time of day when you wake up and the time when standing up as well as the being ( depressed until carefree ) and the assessment for relaxing as sleep was perceived to be entered.
Classifications often done via a Likert scale.
On the Internet, various form patterns for evening - morning protocol can be found, a short and a long version offers the German Society of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine ( DGSM ) to. For certain diseases, such as narcolepsy, there are special items added sleep diaries.
Levels of sleep quality
Sleep quality has a subjective and an objective level. At the subjective level, the assessment of the person concerned belongs to sleep duration, waking sun time, the frequency of Aufwachvorgängen and also to result in the form of perceived recovery, well-being after waking up and sufficiently prolonged wakefulness on the following day. In order to objectively measured sleep duration count level, onset latency, REM latency, proportion of the different sleep stages and the fragmentation of sleep. Differences between subjective and objective assessment of sleep quality should always be observed in existing sleep disorders result from altered perception of sleep of the party further discrepancies.
Side effects of these questionnaires are that the patient feels taken seriously with his sleep complaints, he employ himself intensively with the inquired subjects, the sleeping influencing factors in answering the questions, which may contribute to behavioral changes towards better sleep hygiene and long term improves treatment compliance.
Additional instruments of diagnosis
The individually managed sleep diary can be supplemented and objectified through the use of actigraphy.