Usefulness of Berlin and STOP Questionnaires as a Screening Test for Sleep Apnea in Korea / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Although obstructive sleep apnea is common, it has often gone undiagnosed in primary care encounters until now, with no validated screening tool of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) for Korean patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of Berlin questionnaire (Berlin Q) and STOP questionnaire (STOP Q) as a screening test for sleep apnea for the Korean patients. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We administered Berlin Q and STOP Q to 106 patients who received a full night polysomnography. We investigated sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of each questionnaire according to patients' severity by apnea hypopnea index (AHI). RESULTS: Results were categorized according to AHI severity using cut-off points of AHI greater than 5, 15, and 30. The sensitivity and specificity of the Berlin Q were 69, 72, 78% and 41, 43, 39%, respectively. NPV and PPV of Berlin Q were 0.20, 0.43, 0.74 and 0.86, 0.72, 0.43, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of the STOP Q was 97, 97, 98% and 35, 20, 12%, respectively. NPV and PPV for STOP Q were 0.67, 0.78, 0.89 and were 0.89, 0.71, 0.40, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that STOP Q shows higher sensitivity than Berlin Q with similar specificity. Therefore, STOP Q is a more convenient and better means than Berlin Q to screen patients for obstructive sleep apnea.