Study objectives: To determine whether actigraph placement affects sleep estimation in children.
Design: Descriptive study.
Setting: Naturalistic setting.
Participants: Twenty children aged 7-12 years from primary schools.
Interventions: N/A.
Measurements: Motor activity was measured from the waist and non-dominant wrist with actigraphs for three consecutive days during a school week.
Results: The minute-by-minute agreement of sleep-wake states between the two measurement sites was 92.5%. Wrist- and waist-recorded sleep parameters correlated well and the mean values did not differ.
Conclusions: Although the placement of the actigraph slightly affected the measured activity parameters, its influence on 3-night mean sleep estimates in children was not statistically significant.