Risk of sleep apnea in hospitalized older patients.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) among general medical inpatients and to investigate whether OSA risk is associated with in-hospital sleep quantity and quality.

DESIGN

Prospective cohort study.

SETTING

General medicine ward in academic medical center.

PARTICIPANTS

424 hospitalized adult patients ≥ 50 years old without a sleep disorder diagnosis (mean age 65 years, 57% female, 72% African American).

MAIN MEASURES

The Berlin questionnaire, a validated screen for determining risk of OSA, was administered to hospitalized medical patients. Sleep duration and efficiency were measured via wrist actigraphy. Self-reported sleep quality was evaluated using Karolinska Sleep Quality Index (KSQI).

KEY RESULTS

Two of every 5 inpatients ≥ 50 years old (39.5%, n = 168) were found to be at high risk for OSA. Mean in-hospital sleep duration was ∼ 5 h and mean sleep efficiency was 70%. Using random effects linear regression models, we found that patients who screened at high risk for OSA obtained ∼ 40 min less sleep per night (-39.6 min [-66.5, -12.8], p = 0.004). These findings remained significant after controlling for African American race, sex, and age quartiles. In similar models, those patients who screened at high risk had ∼ 5.5% less sleep efficiency per night (-5.50 [-9.96, -1.05], p = 0.015). In multivariate analysis, patients at high risk for OSA also had lower self-reported sleep quality on KSQI (-0.101 [-0.164, -0.037], p = 0.002).

CONCLUSION

Two of every 5 inpatients older than 50 years screened at high risk for OSA. Those screening at high risk have worse in-hospital sleep quantity and quality.

COMMENTARY

A commentary on this article appears in this issue on page 1067.