Thoughts During Awake Times in Older Good and Poor Sleepers—The Self-Statement Test:60+

In a previous investigation we showed thatthoughts experienced during periods of nocturnalwakefulness contribute to understanding the insomniacomplaint. We also demonstrated the problems withopen-ended thought listings, such as low thoughtfrequencies, large standard deviations, loss of subjectsdue to missing data, and difficulties withstates-of-mind (SOM) ratios. Because of thesedifficulties and the expertise and expense involved in codingthoughts, in the current study we developed andevaluated the Self-Statement Test:60+ (SST:60+) -- a34-item inventory measure of thoughts reported by olderindividuals while trying to fall asleep. Results on 445individuals showed good reliability and validity for themeasure. The findings also demonstrated that negativethoughts and the SOM ratio provide good indices of dysfunctional thinking during periods ofnocturnal arousal. Positive thinking, which appears tobe a strategy to combat negative thoughts, may serve tobuffer the impact of negatives.