The Richards Campbell Sleep Questionnaire for Assessment of Sleep in Critically Ill Patients: Translation, Reliability, and Validation of the Malay Language Version

Poor sleep quality is commonly observed among critically ill patients; however, the assessment of sleep perception in critically ill patients remains challenging. The Richards Campbell Sleep Questionnaire (RCSQ) is a simple, validated tool for sleep quality assessment that has been successfully translated into various languages. This study aimed to translate and assess the validity and reliability of the Malay language version of the RCSQ. The process of translation involved forward and reverse translation methods. The face validity of the translated RCSQ was tested during the pre-test on five non-participating subjects. The reliability of the translated questionnaire was tested with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. A total of 150 critically ill patients were included in the analysis using the translated RCSQ. The average total score of the Malay language version of the RCSQ was 78.59 + 19.43. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient showed a score of 0.839 and 0.930 respectively, indicating that the sampling of the study was meritorious and good internal consistency of the Malay RCSQ. In conclusion, the Malay language version of the RCSQ demonstrated excellent reliability and may aid in the assessment of sleep quality in critically ill patients in a local setting.