Name of questionnaire | Morningness -Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) |
Type of questionnaire-description | Self-reported assessment of morningness and eveningness preferences. Questions are framed in a preferential manner, where the respondent is asked to indicate when, for example, he/she would prefer to wake up or start sleep, rather than when he/she actually does. |
Number of items | 19 |
Number of domains/categories | Not applicable |
Name of categories/domains | Not applicable |
Scaling of items | Multiple choice, 4-5 point numerical scale. The sum gives a score ranging from 16 to 86; scores of 41 and below indicate "evening types", scores of 59 and above indicate "morning types", scores between 42-58 indicate "intermediate types". |
Scoring available: with permission or free | Freely available |
Scoring test-retest reliability | Not evaluated on the original version. Slovene MEQ test-retest reliability was high |
Scoring Internal consistency |
Internal consistency very good in a New Zealand version, Cronbach α coefficient=0.83 Internal consistency of the Slovene MEQ items was high, with Cronbach's Alpha coefficients = 0.86 |
Validity |
Original study in student population (18-32 years). Validated with oral temperature curves. Morning types had a significantly earlier peak time in the circadian peak than Evening types and tended to have a higher daytime temperature and lower post peak temperature. When re-examined, original criteria of Horne and Ostberg (1976) studies showed different validity in different populations. In a validation study in a sample of middle-aged workers- (non-students): evening types were considered as scoring under 53 and morning types above 64, thus giving 28.1% morning type, 51.7% neither type, and 20.2% evening type. In 14 studies that used the MEQ in individuals without a diagnosis of circadian rhythm disorder and used objective circadian phase marker testing (e.g., core body temperature, DLMO), all studies found that subjects with a later circadian phase generally scored lower on the MEQ. Pearson’s correlation coefficients ranged widely from -0.353 to -0.760 in studies, possibly due to differences in study populations and study conditions. [4] |
Language | English Some stem questions and item choices have been rephrased from the original instrument (Horne and Östberg, 1976) to conform with spoken American English |
Translations in other languages (if yes, then list the languages) | Multiple: including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Slovene, Nepali |
Developer name | Horne JA and Ostberg O |
Developer contact information | jim.horne@sleepresearch.co.uk |
Availability of questionnaire: needs permission from developer, cost or freely available | Freely available for non-profit use |
Link to the questionnaire (if available) | Original publication (1) |
Limitations | Questionaires assumes all individuals are on regular diurnal schedules |
Other comments |
May consider using alternative modified versions if population does not have regular diurnal schedules, example: Preferences Scale, Munich ChronoType Questionnaire. Reduced versions of the MEQ have been reported in some studies (e.g., Hungarian, Spanish, Polish, German versions), with 4-6 questions, with modest correlation with the unabridged version. Acknowledge source for publication. |
References |
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Updated by |
Mohammed Alzoubaidi, MD |
The last date of update | November 2022 |