Sleep quality change after upper airway surgery in obstructive sleep apnea: Electrocardiogram-based cardiopulmonary coupling analysis.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: To test the effect of upper airway surgery on sleep quality in adults with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and the potential usefulness of electrocardiogram (ECG)-based cardiopulmonary coupling (CPC) analysis as metrics of sleep quality. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective outcome research. METHODS: A total of 62 consecutive adult patients with OSA, consisting of 36 with successful and 26 with unsuccessful outcomes, were included in the study. Mean age was 37.7 ± 8.9 years, and body mass index (BMI, kg/m(2) ) was 26.9 ± 2.3. We compared clinical characteristics (age, BMI, and Epworth Sleepiness Scale [ESS]), sleep (sleep efficiency, stage non-rapid eye movement [N]1, N2, N3, rapid eye movement, and arousal index [ArI]), respiratory (apnea index [AI], apnea-hypopnea index [AHI], and minimum arterial oxygen saturation [SaO2 ]), and CPC (high-frequency coupling [HFC], low frequency coupling [LFC], very-low-frequency coupling, and elevated low-frequency coupling [e-LFC]) parameters between the success and nonsuccess groups before and after surgery. Surgical success was defined when the postoperative AHI was both <20 per hour and 50% of the preoperative value. RESULTS: Sleep quality measured by CPC analysis improved significantly (HFC, P = .001; LFC, P = .002; e-LFC, P = .003), along with parallel reduction in ESS, respiratory parameters (AHI, AI, minimum SaO2 ), and sleep fragmentation (ArI) in the group with surgical success after upper airway surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Successful upper airway surgery can improve objective sleep quality in adult patients with OSA. CPC metrics of sleep quality are potentially useful to monitor therapeutic responses during long-term postoperative follow-up, as the ECG-based analysis is available as a standalone option outside laboratory polysomnography.

Risk and protective factors predicting multiple suicide attempts.

This study compared demographical and clinical variables between first and multiple suicide attempters and investigated risk and protective factors predicting multiple attempts. 228 patients visiting emergency department after attempting suicide were divided into two groups: first attempter (n=148, 64.9%) and multiple attempter (n=80, 35.1%). Demographic variables, clinical characteristics, factors related with suicide behavior, and psychiatric resources between two groups were compared. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate risk and protective factors predicting multiple attempts. The results showed that multiple attempters were younger, not married, more severe in psychopathology (e.g., psychiatric disorder, personality disorder, lower function, and suicide family history) and suicidality (e.g., repetitive/severe/continuous suicide ideation), and lower in psychiatric resources (e.g., interpersonal stress/conflict, conflicting interpersonal relationship, socially isolated, lower personal achievement, and lower ability to control emotion) than first attempters. Suicide ideation severity and conflicting interpersonal relationships predicted multiple suicide attempts, whereas past year's highest global functioning score and age over 45 protected against multiple suicide attempts. This study demonstrated that multiple suicide attempters have more severe clinical profile than first suicide attempters. Moreover, decreasing severity of suicide ideation, improving interpersonal relationships, and enhancing functioning level of suicide attempters might be important in preventing them from re-attempting suicide.