Quality of life impairment in patients of obstructive sleep apnea and its relation with the severity of disease.

BACKGROUND

Several studies have demonstrated considerable impairment of quality of life (QOL) in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients, but its relation with severity of OSA is yet unclear.

STUDY OBJECTIVES

To investigate the effects of OSA on the QOL and its association with the disease severity.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Observational, prospective case-control study.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

QOL of 69 OSA patients and 41 healthy controls were assessed using the Calgary sleep apnea quality of life index (SAQLI) on the morning following the polysomnography (PSG) study.

STATISTICS

All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago). Differences between sleep-related symptoms and SAQLI subscales scores were assessed with the Chi-square test and the Student t-test. Due to non-normal distribution, differences between SAQLI scores of controls and OSA patients were evaluated using a non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. Spearman correlation and backward multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the association between SAQLI scores and sleep indices and anthropometric variables and PSG variables.

RESULTS

Study included 69 cases (57 male and 12 females) with a mean age, weight, height, neck circumference, and body mass index 48.45 ± 10.12 years, 83.03 ± 16.48 kg, 159.75 ± 28.29 cm, 44.01 ± 3.23 cm and 30.77 ± 6.71 kg/m(2). Mean apnea-hypopnea index was 26.39 ± 16.62. The median score of four SAQLI domains daily function, social interaction, emotional, symptoms and total mean SAQLI score were 3.64 (3.46-3.90), 3.77 (3.51-3.88), 3.64 (3.53-3.83), 4.80 (4.68-5.11), 4.09 (3.88-4.09),and 1.36 (1.29-1.71), 1.38 (1.24-1.62), 1.45 (1.23-1.62), 2.00 (1.78-2.26), 1.55 (1.46-1.73) for patients and controls respectively. All the individual domain scores and the mean SAQLI scores of patients were significantly higher than the controls.

CONCLUSION

OSA causes significant impairment of QOL, but the severity of impairment is not directly proportional to the severity of OSA.