Dados do Trabalho

Título

Prevalence and predictors of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome in a elderly sample

Introdução

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a great cause of morbidity. Polysomnography (PSG) is still expensive and poorly available in health systems especially in low- and middle-income countries. Thus, investigating OSAS using clinical tools, whose associations enable its prediction, are relevant and deserve study in different age groups.

Objetivo

Estimate the prevalence of OSAS and verify its association with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Stop-Bang (SBQ), Berlin questionnaire (BQ), anthropometric measurements, and previous diseases in a sample of elderly patients.

Métodos

Retrospective study, whose information was obtained from the Sleep Laboratory database of the Gaffrée and Guinle University Hospital, from June 2017 to June 2019. Individuals aged 60 years old or older were selected. The following variables were analyzed and compared to the PSG report, which determined the diagnosis of OSAS: gender, age, family income, education, weight, body mass index (BMI), cervical circumference (CC), abdominal circumference (AC), pelvic circumference (PC), ESS, SBQ, BQ, and previous diseases. T test or Wilcoxon was used to compare quantitative variables and Chi-square or Fisher's exact test for qualitative variables. All variables were applied in a univariate model. Odds ratio (OR) was verified for each variable that had a significant association in the model. It was considered significance of 5%.

Resultados

74 patients were found in our database, 57 of them had all the informations that have been investigated. From those, 39 were diagnosed with OSAS by PSG. The prevalence of the syndrome in the sample was 68.42%. The average age for those with OSAS was 74 ± 8.30 ys and without 74 ± 8.10 ys. Females were predominant, representing 82.1% of the OSAS group and 88.9% without OSAS. In exploratory analysis, AC (0.012) and BQ (0.047) were associated with OSAS. When applied in the univariate model, the variables with association were AC (0,019) and CC (0,037), both proved to be a risk factor for OSAS with OR of 1.07 (1.01-1.14) and 1.24 (1.01-1.52), respectively.

Conclusões

In this sample of elderly patients with a predominance of females, a high prevalence of OSAS was found, in which abdominal and cervical circumference measures seem to be good predictors. These results need to be expanded to larger samples and investigated in other age groups, aiming to be considered as possible criteria for the suspicion of OSAS in the clinical context.

Palavras-chave

obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, elderly, prevalence