External validity of the reduced Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents: an actigraphic study

May 24, 2023Journal of sleep research

How well the short Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire matches sleep-wake patterns in children and teens

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Abstract

Out of 458 participants, 13.97% were identified as evening types using the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaires for Children and Adolescents.

Evening types exhibited significantly higher motor activity from around 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. compared to morning and intermediate types.
Morning types showed increased motor activity around 4:00 a.m., contrasting the patterns of evening and intermediate types.
The 24-hour motor activity patterns varied significantly between chronotypes, aligning with expected behavioral differences.
The external validity of the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire is supported by its correlation with actigraphy-measured motor activity.

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The aim of this study was to examine the external validity of the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaires for Children and Adolescents, using circadian motor activity, assessed through actigraphy, as an external criterion. Overall, 458 participants (269 females), with a mean (standard deviation) age of 15.75 (1.16) years, took part in this study. Each adolescent was requested to wear the actigraph Micro Motionlogger Watch actigraph (Ambulatory Monitoring, Inc., Ardlsey, NY, USA) around the non-dominant wrist for 1 week. At the end of the actigraphic recording, participants completed the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaires for Children and Adolescents. We extracted the motor activity counts, minute-by-minute over the 24 h, to depict the 24-h motor activity pattern, and we adopted the statistical framework of functional linear modelling to examine its changes according to chronotype. According to the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaires for Children and Adolescents cut-off scores, 13.97% of participants (n = 64) belonged to the evening-types category, 9.39% (n = 43) to morning-types, while the remaining (76.64%, n = 351) to the intermediate-types category. Evening types moved significantly more than the intermediate and morning types from around 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., while the opposite pattern of results was observed around 4:00 a.m. The results highlighted a significant difference in the 24-h motor activity pattern between chronotypes, in line with the expectations based on their well-known behaviour. Therefore, this study shows that the external validity of the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents, established by considering motor activity (recorded through actigraphy) as an external criterion, is satisfactory.

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External validity of the reduced Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents: an actigraphic study

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