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Development and Validation of a Dream
Content Questionnaire for
School Age Children
Oliviero Bruni, M.D., Floriana Lo Reto, M.D., Annamaria Recine, M.D., Salvatore Ottaviano, M.D.,
and Vincenzo Guidetti, M.D.
Developmental studies of dream content have demonstrated that children ’s dreams reflect
the ego and personality development.We designed a study to objectively evaluate the
dream content through questionnaire and determine the relationship with personality traits.
Three questionnaire were administered to a sample of 80 children from a school of Rome:
1)Dream Content Questionnaire for Children (ChDCQ):derived from a retrospective
questionnaire on the dream contents for adult based on classification method of Hall and
Van de Castle and Hunt.;2)Student Sleep Habits Questionnaire (SSHQ)with question
about sleep,somnolence and circadian typology;3)the Eysenck Personality Inventory
Junior (EPIj).The ChDCQ showed a good level of internal consistency (Cronbach ’s . =0.81)
and a good temporal stability.Factor analysis extracted seven factors:accounting for
52.81%of the variance:1.Aggression;2.Friendliness;3.Inhibition of aggressivenes;4.
Characters and sexual interactions;5.Negative emotions;6.Positive emotions;7.
Bizarreness/Archetypal.Personality traits correlated with several ChDCQ factors:
Psychoticism with aggression and inhibition of aggressiveness,friendly interactions and
positive emotions;Extraversion with aggression,characters and sexual interactions and
archetypal;Neuroticism with inhibition of aggressiveness,negative emotions and
archetypal.Gender differences have been found in ChDCQ;male dreams have higher
contents of Aggression while female dreams showed more Friendliness and Negative or
Positive Emotions.Our study showed that the ChDCQ was well accepted,easy to fill out
and not time-consuming.It could be used for evaluating the differences in dream content
in clinical groups (i.e.children with major depressive disorders and anxiety disorders)and
also for assessing the relationships with other tests (i.e.personality or sleep
questionnaires).(Sleep and Hypnosis 1999;1:41-46)
| Keywords: dream, questionnaire, child, personality, sleep disturbances |
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