Avaliação da sonolência diurna excessiva em adolescentes via teoria de resposta ao item

Abstract

Chronic sleep loss among adolescents is already a public health epidemic. During adolescence, sleep undergoes significant changes, adolescents are increasingly vulnerable to sleep disorders, such as excessive daytime sleepiness. The objective of this thesis was to determine an interpretable scale to measure the level of sleepiness in adolescents via Item Response Theory (IRT) and to relate the estimated level of sleepiness with sleep disorders in adolescents. Consisting of two articles, the first entitled “Assessment of the Brazilian version of the Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS-BR) through item response theory” which aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the ESS-BR in adolescents through the TRI and the second article entitled “Relationship between excessive daytime sleepiness and sleep disorders in adolescents”, which aimed to understand the relationship between sleep disorders and sleepiness in adolescents. Psychometric study that used data from adolescents aged between 18 and 19 years old, of both genders, who were part of the third phase of the birth cohort in the city of São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. The findings of this thesis showed good internal consistency and unidimensionality of the ESS-BR, when performing the analysis through the TRI this scale presented satisfactory psychometric properties and the estimation of the level of sleepiness in adolescents, via TRI, proved to be a reliable model that allows greater understanding of this phenomenon. The sleep disorders analyzed with this model that were positively associated with the level of excessive daytime sleepiness were snoring, feeling hot, having nightmares and feeling pain. Being male and belonging to the most unfavorable social class were negatively associated with the level of sleepiness in adolescents. Although still little used, IRT modeling in this thesis proved to be a strong point of investigation and allowed a better understanding of excessive daytime sleepiness in adolescents in terms of items, allowing a better understanding of behavior related to sleep disorders in this population.