Papers of the Week

Self-report measures are needed to better understand the relationships among sleep, itching, scratching, and chronic itch conditions and their associations with disease severity, quality of life, health, and functioning. Two scales related to sleep and/or scratch were recently developed and assessed in 137 patients with chronic itch and atopic dermatitis or psoriasis. The Scratch Intensity and Impact Scale consisted of two factors (Scratching Intensity and Impact of Scratching on Quality of Life) that accounted for 64.59% of the variance with a total of 13 items, an overall Cronbach's alphas of 0.93, and test-retest reliability of 0.66. The Sleep-Related Itch and Scratch Scale consisted of one factor that accounted for 63.01% of the variance with a total of 16 items, an overall Cronbach's alphas of 0.98, and test-retest reliability of 0.66. Both measures demonstrated significant correlations with each other as well as other itch-related measures and non-significant correlations with scales hypothesized to be unrelated. The final measures demonstrated adequate preliminary psychometric characteristics. It is hoped that these scales will be used for future research and clinical purposes to help fill recognized gaps in understanding about sleep, itch, scratching, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis.