Abstract
Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder characterized by repetitive episodes of nocturnal breathing cessation due to upper airway collapse. Patient with sleep apnea have an increased risk of diurnal hypertension, nocturnal dysrhythmia, right and left ventricular failure, myocardial infarction and stroke. The most common complaints are loud snoring, disrupted sleep and excessive day time sleepiness. Cycles of sleep, snoring, obstruction, arousal and sleep occur throughout the night. Some patients with severe apnea may have episodes of upper airway obstruction a hundred or more times in one hour. Multiple arousals with sleep fragmentation are the likely cause of excessive daytime sleepiness in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Because many patients are not aware of their heavy snoring and nocturnal arousals, obstructive sleep apnea may remain undiagnosed.
Materials and method: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on health science students at Taibah University in AL-Medina Saudi Arabia during the year 2018/2019. We randomly distributed and collected 537 responses from health science students using Berlin Sleep Questionnaire (BSQ). All questionnaires were properly filled-up therefore; there was no missing data in the finalized dataset. The analysis was performed in 95% confidence interval using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), version 23 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Categorical variables were presented as frequencies and percentages. Continuous variables were presented as mean +/- SD, minimum and maximum values. Prevalence of high risk and low risk for OSA were calculated according to Berlin questionnaire. The finding of BSQ was compared across the gender and GPA by Chi-squared test. Binary logistic regression analysis (method = enter) was done to identify the factors predictive of high risk of OSA.
Results : Total 537 students participated in this study and among them 234 (56.4%) were male. More than half (52.9%) of the respondents were aged between 17 to 22 years while 45.6% were 23-28 years old, and remaining 1.5% were more than 28 years old. The mean +/- SD height, weight and BMI of all students were 164.20 +/- 9.94 cm, 66.33 +/- 19.55 kg and 24.35 +/- 5.89 kg/m2. 11.9 percent of the participants were at high risk of OSA while 88.1 percent were at low risk. When socio-demographic data was compared between high-risk respondents and low risk respondents, the only statistically significant difference was found for 'gender' (OR 0.521, p.014). The binary logistic regression analysis revealed the only significant predictor for being high-risk patient and that was 'presence of snoring' (OR 0.108, 95% CI 0.041-0.154, p <.001).
Conclusion: Although the findings of this study showed small percentage of students who were at high risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, still this prevalence is quite alarming at their young age. In order to decrease the prevalence of risk factors of OSA among health science student, continuous promotion of physical education should be exerted at a school level where physical exercise, eating healthy food, having enough sleep, awareness of sleep disorder should be taught by physical educators constantly.