Circadian-Referenced Predictive Tests of Adjustment: Some Further Explorations

Abstract

An earlier questionnaire approach designed to assess adjustment to shift-work produced three factors: rigidity/flexibility of sleeping habits, ability to overcome drowsiness, morningness/eveningness derived by Folkard, Monk, and Lobban in 1979. Using the same items and additional ones made an extended version of this questionnaire, which was then administered to 68 university undergraduates and, separately, to 62 mothers having young infants. None of the previously reported factors emerged. A second version of the questionnaire was developed. It contained the same Folkard, et al. items and nine “additional” items which emerged from our first analysis. This version was administered to two further groups: 170 university undergraduates and 31 working nurses. Again, the three main factors did not appear. However, two main factors arose from all four analyses. Each was a state transition: one was from wake-to-sleep, the other from sleep-to-wake. It appears future work should focus on these two transitional states as well as on specific task-related indices.