Development and validation of the Munich Parasomnia Screening (MUPS)

We have developed and validated the Munich Parasomnia Screening (MUPS) questionnaire, a self-rating instrument with 21 items assessing the lifetime prevalence and current frequency of parasomnias and nocturnal behaviors in adult persons. The MUPS was developed with psychiatric patients (total n = 74). For the validation study the MUPS was given to three large groups, i.e. psychiatric patients (n = 65), sleep-disordered patients (n = 50), and healthy controls (n = 65). In a randomly chosen subset of 20 % of these subjects the MUPS was compared to the information obtained in a detailed clinical interview with a sleep medicine expert. Validity was assessed for lifetime prevalence of any frequency for each of the 21 nocturnal behaviors. For the individual items of the MUPS sensitivity was equal to or above 90 % for all but two of 21 items and specificity was above 80 % for all items and above 90 % for 19 of 21 items. More importantly, concerning the use of the MUPS in clinical practice, positive and negative predictive values of the single items were high for the majority of items. The MUPS appears to be an easy to use and valid instrument in the recognition of nocturnal behaviors and parasomnias.