The Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes About Sleep Scale (DBAS)
What It Measures
The Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes About Sleep Scale (DBAS) looks at the thoughts someone has about their own sleep including things like "I need exactly 8 hours to function" or worrying that a bad night will ruin the next day, since these kinds of beliefs can actually make sleep problems worse. Rather than measuring sleep itself, it measures the thinking patterns that often keep insomnia going.
The commonly used short form, the DBAS-16, has 16 self-report items rated on a 0–10 scale and covers four areas: sleep expectations, worry/helplessness about insomnia, perceived consequences of poor sleep, and beliefs about medication. Scores are averaged across items, with higher scores reflecting more unhelpful sleep beliefs. Occupational therapists and mental health clinicians use it with adults and older adults in mental health, skilled nursing, and outpatient settings, often alongside cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), to identify specific beliefs to address in treatment and track how those beliefs shift over time.
