Introduction. Whenever a new scale is created or translatedfrom another language, it must be validated, establishing itsreliability for the new population where it will be used. Sleepquality concept is a construct that can be evaluated using selfreportscales. Resulting elements vary depending on the individualssurveyed. This type of evaluation is mainly subjective andincludes quantitative aspects such as sleep duration, number ofawakenings, latency time, and qualitative aspects such as restsensation, mood and oneiric content (Valencia, 2000). In thepresent study we made a critical review of the sleep scalesdesigned for child, adolescent and adult populations that havebeen validated and the difficulties they might present.Methodology. Between September 2005 and May 2006a bibliographical search was made within pubmed, ovid, andthe data base of the periodical and book library of the Ramónde la Fuente Muñiz National Institute of Psychiatry, using andcombining the following key words: sleep, sleep questionnaire,sleep scale, sleep inventory, adolescent, adolescent sleepscale. The most relevant papers to our study were selected.The search was limited to Spanish and English articles, althoughthere was no year or geographical origin limit. Articlesthat did not include clinimetrical data where excluded.Conclusions. Based on our bibliographical search andour discussion, we suggested the design and validation of aSpanish scale to evaluate adolescent population whichavoids a time interval between awakening and the answeringof the instrument in order to decrease recall bias.
