Difficulty with sleep is one of the most common problems that clients bring to nurses. The symptom that these clients most often complain of is fatigue. Multiple and varied therapies have been tried to improve sleep and reduce fatigue. A major problem with evaluating the effectiveness of these therapies is the difficulty of measuring sleep. The """"""""gold standard"""""""" for measuring sleep is polysomnography (PSG), which requires extensive and expensive equipment, considerable personnel time, and represents a significant burden for the subject in a therapeutic trial. What is needed is an alternative that is non-invasive, cost-effective, yet sufficiently accurate to detect clinically important changes in sleep over time. This project proposes to look at the accuracy of self-report and motion sensor measures of sleep quantity (total nighttime sleep time and awakenings) compared to PSG. The construct validity of a scale designed to measure the symptom of fatigue will assessed by comparing changes in reported fatigue with changes in sleep. A sample of 30 post partum women will have their sleep monitored by PSG, self-report and motion sensor, and fatigue by self-report at 1, 3 and 6 months post delivery. This will result in 180 nights of sleep recording's and fatigue reports. The accuracy of time of sleep and number of awakenings as determined by self-report and motion sensor compared to PSG will be determined. The construct validity of the fatigue scale will be evaluated by correlating fatigue scores with the three measures of sleep.
