Abstract
We attempted to investigate anxiety (with Spielberger's Trait Anxiety), depression (with Beck Depression Inventory) and alexithymia (with Toronto Alexithymia Scale) in patients with newly diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) with an Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) ≥ 5 events/hour. We present our results from 32 consecutive patients (age 51±9 years, AHI 54±16 events/hour, no significant cardiac or other comorbidities) who have performed full night polysomnography due to symptoms, sucha as snoring, disrupted sleep, witnessed apneas, morning headache, morning fatigue and daily hypersomnolence (estimated by Epworth Scale).We have found that 56.25% of patients had clinically important anxiety, 62.50% depression and 46.87% alexithymia. Apart from a weak correlation between anxiety and sleep latency, there was not any other correlation between the above psychologic parameters and age, AHI, nocturnal oxygenation and sleep efficiency. We found a cut-off level of AHI ≥ 70 events/hour and age ≥ 60 years old in combination, where all 9 patients in that specific subgroup had anxiety, depression and alexithymia. In conclusion, the incidence of anxiety, depression and alexithymia is significantly higher in OSAS patients as compared to the general population.Older age and more severe OSAS are factors predisposing to these psychologic disturbances. However, not any correlation has been found between the psychologic profile and severity of OSAS, abnormal oxygenation or sleep quality. Probably, other factors, unknown as of yet, may play a role.
- © 2011 ERS