Screening of pediatric sleep-disordered breathing: a proposed unbiased discriminative set of questions using clinical severity scales.

BACKGROUND

Identification of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) using questionnaires is critical from a clinical and research perspective. However, which questions to use and how well such questionnaires perform has thus far been fraught with substantial uncertainty. We aimed at delineating the usefulness of a set of questions for identifying pediatric SDB.

METHODS

Random prospective sampling of urban 5- to 9-year-old children from the community and enriched for habitual snoring underwent overnight sleep study. Subjective indicators or questions were evaluated to further characterize and discriminate SDB.

RESULTS

Of 1,133 subjects, 52.8% were habitual snorers. This sample was analyzed based on a clinical grouping (ie, established apnea-hypopnea index cutoffs). Several statistical steps were performed and indicated that complaints can be ranked according to a severity hierarchy: shake child to breathe, apnea during sleep, struggle breathing when asleep, and breathing concerns while asleep, followed by loudness of snoring and snoring while asleep. With a posteriori cutoff, a predictive score > 2.72 on the severity scale was found (ie, area under the curve, 0.79 ± 0.03; sensitivity, 59.03%; specificity, 82.85%; positive predictive value, 35.4; negative predictive value, 92.7), making this cutoff applicable for confirmatory purposes.

CONCLUSIONS

As a result, the set of six hierarchically arranged questions will aid the screening of children at high risk for SDB but cannot be used as the sole diagnostic approach.