Screening for risk of obstructive sleep apnoea - results of an island wide survey in Sri Lanka

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is the commonest sleep related breathing disorder worldwide, but there is only limited community level data on the risk of OSA from South Asian countries. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the community prevalence of persons at high-risk for OSA among Sri Lankan adults. METHODS: A randomly selected sample of adults from 7 (out of 9) provinces of Sri Lanka was screened using the Berlin Questionnaire (BQ). BQ has 3 categories related to snoring severity (category 1), excessive day time somnolence (category 2) and history of hypertension or obesity (category 3). Individuals were classified as high or low risk according to the category score. RESULTS: One thousand six hundred and eight adults (46.2% male) were screened, and 270 were classified as high risk for OSA {16.8%; 95% Cl 14.9 %-18.6% (15.1% in males; 18.3% in females, p >0.05)}. Of the high-risk individuals, 239 (88.5%) were category 1 positive, 142 (52.6%) category 2 positive and 202 (74.8%) category 3 positive. 49/577 (8.5%) among persons = or <40 years and 221/ 1031 (21.4%) among those >40 years were at high risk. 10.3% of the adults had a BMI ≥30 (5.7% of males, 14% of females p<0.001). Snoring was reported by 573 (35.6%) individuals; 120 of them (20.9%) had apneas during sleep. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of high risk for OSA in this Sri Lankan community survey is lower than that reported from Western countries and did not show a gender-related difference.