The psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Pre-sleep Arousal Scale.

Purpose: The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Pre-sleep Arousal Scale (PSAS), which measures pre-sleep arousal, a significant predictor of insomnia symptoms.

Methods: 651 participants were recruited via social media and the Internet. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in the total sample (65.28% females; M_age1 = 28.09 ± 14.00). Convergent, divergent, incremental, and known-groups validity and internal consistency coefficients were assessed in a subsample of 556 participants (62.77% females; M_age2 = 29.25 ± 14.81). A second separate sample of 88 participants (80.68% females; M_age3 = 22.19 ± 4.98) was used to evaluate three-week test-retest reliability.

Results: The results of factor analysis confirmed the two-factor structure of the Turkish PSAS with cognitive (PSAS-C) and somatic (PSAS-S), similar to the original scale. The correlations of the PSAS with convergent and divergent measures showed that the Turkish form had good convergent and acceptable divergent validity. PSAS-C and PSAS-S were able to explain an 18% additional variance in insomnia severity beyond depression and anxiety, an 18% additional variance in depression beyond insomnia severity, and a 35% additional variance in anxiety beyond insomnia severity. Moreover, insomnia patients had significantly higher PSAS-C and PSAS-S scores than good sleepers. Finally, the PSAS, PSAS-C, and PSAS-S had satisfactory internal consistency coefficients (α = 0.92, 0.91, and 0.86, respectively) and three-week test-retest correlations (ICC = 0.82, 0.82, and 0.71, respectively).

Conclusion: The Turkish form of the PSAS was a valid and reliable measure of pre-sleep arousal and can be utilized in sleep studies.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41105-023-00483-z.