Prevalence of Snoring and the Risk of Sleep Apnea in Hospital Staff

Background: Untreated Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) as a common breathing sleep disorder results in impaired work performance. The economic burden of untreated OSAS accounts for billions of dollars per year.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of snoring and the risk of OSAS in healthcare system staff.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 715 staff of Dr. Masih Daneshvari Hospital in 2012. The Berlin questionnaire was used to identify the prevalence of snoring and the risk of sleep apnea. Additional information, including demographic characteristics, night work, night sleep less than 4 hours, smoking, underlying disease, and quality of sleep were evaluated as well. The information was analyzed using SPSS 15.

Results: 12.6% reported snoring. 6.9% and 93.1% were categorized into the high and low risk groups for OSAS respectively. There was an association between the risk of OSAS and age group (P-value = 0.007), gender (P-value = 0.028), marital status (P-value = 0.008), educational level (P-value = 0.035), chronic disease (P-value = 0.008), night sleep less than 4 hours (P-value = 0.001), difficulty in staying asleep (P-value = 0.000) and waking up too early (P-value = 0.006). Even logistic regression analysis demonstrated the relationship between the risk of OSAS and night sleep less than 4 hours (P-value = 0.019) and difficulty in staying asleep (P-value = 0.009).

Conclusions: The results showed that the risk of OSAS is significant in healthcare system staff. Hope to provide a special screening program for OSAS in a regular occupational examination.