Usefulness of the adult concentration inventory in the psychological assessment of adult sleep disorder patients

Study objective: Sleep disorders and Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome (CDS), a persistent condition involving inappropriate cognitive and motor symptoms, can be interconnected. Here, we aimed to evaluate the usefulness of self-reports of adult CDS in sleep disorders population. Methods: 242 participants (male = 110, 45.5 %; female = 132, 54.5 %) with sleep disorders were consecutively admitted to Sleep Disorder Unit of San Raffaele Turro-Hospital of Milan, Italy. The 16-item version, the 15-item version, and the 10 item versions of the Adult Concentration Inventory (ACI) were administered. We used item response theory (IRT) analyses based on nonparametric graded response model (NGRM) to evaluate the ACI measurement properties. Internal consistency was assessed via Cronbach's alpha coefficients. Associations between ACI scores and clinical variables were examined using correlation and regression analyses. Results: IRT analysis showed that all ACI versions were provided with adequate measurement properties, although in the case of the 10-item version of ACI marginal problems with local independence were observed for two pairs of items. Adequate Cronbach's alpha values were observed for the three ACI versions. All ACI version total scores were significantly and non-negligibly associated with hypersomnia/narcolepsy. In this sub-sample, all ACI scores showed significant and non-trivial relationships with REM sleep latency, whereas only the 10-item ACI total score was significantly related with the number of correct targets on the Clock Task. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that short versions of the ACI may be useful for early detection of the attention difficulties in selected sleep disorders, thus representing a potential help in everyday clinical practice.