Authors:
Simpson L; Hillman DR; Cooper MN; Ward KL; Hunter M; Cullen S; et al.
Authors notes:
2012:online
Keywords:
Berlin, Case-control, Epidemiology, General population, Obstructive sleep apnoea, Portable monitoring
Abstract:
Undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in the community makes comparisons of OSA subjects with control samples from the general population problematic.
This study aims to estimate undiagnosed moderate to severe OSA in a general population sample and to determine the capacity of questions from the Berlin questionnaire (BQ) to identify subjects without diagnosed OSA of this severity.
The age-standardised prevalence estimate of moderate-severe OSA was 9.1 % (12.4 % in men, 5.7 % in women).
Sensitivity of the BQ in this population was 54 %, and specificity, 70 %. A combination of questions regarding snoring frequency and hypertension provided maximal post-test probability of OSA and greatest post-screen sample size.
Undiagnosed OSA is highly prevalent in the Western Australian general population.
While the complete BQ is a sub-optimal screening instrument for the general population, snoring frequency or hypertension can be used to screen out moderate-severe OSA from general population samples with limited reduction in sample size.
As there are few general population samples available for epidemiological or genetic studies of OSA and its associated phenotypes, these results may usefully inform future case-control studies.