Sleep questionnaire

Questionnaire contributors and institution at the time of their contribution

• Professor Derk-Jan Dijk, University of Surrey, Surrey Sleep Research Centre
• Professor Colin Espie, University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences
• Professor Simon Kyle, University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences
• Professor Emmanuel Mignot, Stanford University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences

Yes please. Having information from people who do not have problems with their sleep helps researchers understand why some people develop issues and others do not.

The questionnaire will guide you through the questions based on the responses that you give. This means that you will be asked questions that are tailored to your experiences of sleep. If you and your husband/wife/partner/friend have provided different answers to early questions, you may have been directed to different questions later in the questionnaire.

We would like to know when you feel most mentally alert and ‘on the ball,’ rather than when you feel your best physically.

Some people think that they feel most awake and able to function well either in the mornings (so-called ‘morning larks’) or the evenings (so-called ‘night-owls’), although others feel the same throughout the day. We are interested to know if you believe that you function better in the morning or the evening, or if there is no difference for you.

These questions are intended to capture information about the effect of work patterns on sleep. We are therefore interested in regular paid work and unpaid voluntary work but not about caring for friends and family.

Yes please. We would like all participants to complete this section, even if you are retired and not working or if you are currently between jobs.

If you are not currently working or are retired, please consider all seven days of the week to be non-working days and answer this question accordingly.

We realise that your sleep pattern may have varied over the past month, so please give your best estimate of the usual time that you fell asleep.

If the time that you fell asleep and time that you woke up has varied over the past month, then please select the option ‘Varies significantly’ for questions WaS6, WaS7, WaS8 and WaS9.

In order for researchers to compare the results provided by UK Biobank participants with those from other studies, our questionnaires often include standard scales that are frequently used in clinical practice or in other large scale research projects. Despite having different purposes, some scales may include similar questions which we unfortunately can’t change or omit (otherwise the responses from the scale would be useless). Where some questions may seem similar, we would be grateful if you could answer all of the questions and give the answer that is most relevant for you to ensure that we can capture the most useful information from you.

We accept that your sleep patterns may vary from day to day, so please provide us with your best estimate of the average time that you go to bed or wake up.

Please answer the questions based on how you have slept in the past month, even if this was not typical for you.

We realise that this may be challenging for you so please give your best estimate of your sleep quality at this time.

For some people, a change in sleep over the past couple of years may be linked to a change in lifestyle, working pattern, or your health that is directly associated with the pandemic. For others, the change may be nothing to do with the pandemic. We are interested in any changes that you may have experienced, regardless of the reason.

We would like to know when you feel would be the best time of day for you to go to bed or get up, if you could choose the time. This may be different from when your carer helps you into or out of bed.

When we say ‘a typical night,’ we would like to know about your experiences of sleep during what you would consider a usual night of sleep for you.

We mean times that you would not usually expect to be sleeping.

No, it is not the same as muscle fatigue. In this instance, we mean sudden and involuntary muscle weakness (loss of muscle tone), specifically triggered by strong emotions such as laughter or anger.

A night guard cushions the teeth from wear and tear but it does not stop you grinding and clenching the teeth. Please give us your best estimate of how often you think you grind in your sleep.

We mean an unpleasant crawling or creeping sensation in the feet, calves and/or thighs.

“Slow thinking speed” relates to the amount of time that it takes you to take in, make sense of, and respond to information. “Trouble finding the right word” is when you cannot think of a specific word or have the sensation that it is ‘on the tip of your tongue.’

We would like to know if your relatives have ever had these issues.

Any comments you leave will not be systematically reviewed. If you would like to tell us something that requires our immediate attention or action from us, please call our Participant Resource Centre on 0800 0 276 276 (Monday to Friday 9am-5pm).

Any information you provide will be saved and could be evaluated by researchers in the future (for example, using techniques such as ’natural language processing’). However, UK Biobank does not currently have the resources to undertake this analysis.