The Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS), developed by
William C. Dement and colleagues in 1972, is a one-item
self-report questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents through survey or statistical study. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of ...
measuring levels of sleepiness throughout the day. The scale has been validated for adult populations
and is generally used to track overall alertness at each hour of the day.
The SSS is used in both research and clinical settings to assess the level of intervention or effectiveness of a specific treatment in order to compare a client's progress.
Reliability and validity
Reliability
Reliability
Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Computing
* Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage
* Reliability (computer networking), a category used to des ...
refers to whether the scores are reproducible. Unless otherwise specified, the reliability scores and values come from studies done with a United States population sample.
Validity
Validity describes the evidence that an assessment tool measures what it was supposed to measure.
Unless otherwise specified, the reliability scores and values come from studies done with a United States population sample.
Development and history
The SSS was developed to measure subjective sleepiness in research and clinical settings.
Other instruments measuring sleepiness tend to examine the general experience of sleepiness over the course of a day, but the SSS met a need for a scale measuring sleepiness in specific moments of time.
Because it can be used to evaluate specific moments, the scale can be used repeatedly at different time intervals in a research study or for treatment intervention.
Use in other populations
Since the development of the SSS, there have been other more specific and more recently developed sleepiness rating scales, such as the
Epworth Sleepiness Scale
The Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) is a scale intended to measure daytime sleepiness that is measured by use of a very short questionnaire. This can be helpful in diagnosing sleep disorders. It was introduced in 1991 by Dr Murray Johns of Epwor ...
, which is more commonly used in other populations. Due to the fact that it has only been translated into English, it is not significantly used in other populations.
Limitations
The primary limitations of the Stanford Sleepiness Scale is that it is a
self-report measure, because of this, levels of sleepiness may be over or under reported based on personal biases.
See also
*
Sleepiness
Somnolence (alternatively sleepiness or drowsiness) is a state of strong desire for sleep, or sleeping for unusually long periods (compare hypersomnia). It has distinct meanings and causes. It can refer to the usual state preceding falling asleep ...
*
Sleep disorder
A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder affecting an individual's sleep patterns, sometimes impacting physical, mental, social, and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for diagnosing sle ...
References
External links
SSS Available Online
{{Mental and behavioural disorders
Diagnostic neurology
Mental disorders screening and assessment tools