Usefulness of the Berlin Questionnaire to identify patients at high risk for obstructive sleep apnea: a population-based door-to-door study

• Published in: Sleep & breathing Vol. 17; no. 2; pp. 803 - 810
• Main Authors: Kang, Kyunghun, Park, Ki-Soo, Kim, Ji-Eun, Kim, Sung-Wan, Kim, Young-Teak, Kim, Jung-Soo, Lee, Ho-Won
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.05.2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Biological and medical sciences; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dentistry; Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health Surveys; Humans; Internal Medicine; Male; Mass Screening - methods; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Multiple sclerosis and variants. Guillain barré syndrome and other inflammatory polyneuropathies. Leukoencephalitis; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurology; Original Article; Otorhinolaryngology; Patients; Pediatrics; Pneumology/Respiratory System; Polysomnography; Population; Psychometrics - statistics & numerical data; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Republic of Korea; Risk Factors; Sleep apnea; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive - diagnosis; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive - epidemiology; Sleep. Vigilance; Surveys and Questionnaires; Translating; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Republic of Korea; Germany, Berlin; Korea, Rep; Validity; General population; Berlin Questionnaire; Polysomnography; Obstructive sleep apnea; Sleep-disordered breathing; Human; High risk; Nervous system diseases; Sleep apnea syndrome; Questionnaire; Respiratory disease; Sleep disorder; Sleep; Sleep wake cycle; Neurological disorder
• ISSN: 1520-9512; 1522-1709; 1522-1709
• DOI: 10.1007/s11325-012-0767-2

Background The Berlin Questionnaire (BQ) is a useful tool to identify the high-risk group for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in the primary care sites or hospital, but the usefulness of the BQ to identify the high-risk group for OSA in the general population has not been evaluated. The purpose of our study was to develop the Korean version of the BQ (KBQ) and evaluate the usefulness of the BQ in identifying patients with OSA in the general population. Methods A total of 1,305 subjects were included in a population-based door-to-door cross-sectional study. For validation of the KBQ, an overnight polysomnography (PSG) was performed on 101 subjects who were randomly selected considering their age, sex, and risk group classification at a controlled sleep laboratory. Results The KBQ showed a relatively good to excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s α correlation 0.64–0.78) and test–retest reliability (intraclass correlation 0.92). The apnea–hypopnea index (AHI) was significantly correlated with the scores in each category and the total scores of the KBQ. In addition, high risk grouping based on the KBQ predicted an AHI ≥ 5 with a sensitivity of 0.69 and a specificity of 0.83. According to the risk categorization based on the KBQ, 26.1 % subjects were in the high-risk group for OSA which was similar to the prevalence of OSA in a previous large epidemiological study using PSG in Korea. Conclusion This is the first study to confirm the usefulness of the BQ as a screening tool for OSA by prioritizing subjects at high risk for OSA in the general population.