Two new tools for assessing patients' knowledge and beliefs about obstructive sleep apnea and continuous positive airway pressure therapy.
OBJECTIVE
Patients' knowledge and beliefs about their illnesses are known to influence a range of health related variables, including treatment compliance. It may, therefore, be important to quantify these variables to assess their impact on compliance, particularly in chronic illnesses such as Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) that rely on self-administered treatments. The aim of this study was to develop two new tools, the Apnea Knowledge Test (AKT) and the Apnea Beliefs Scale (ABS), to assess illness knowledge and beliefs in OSA patients.


METHODS
The systematic test construction process followed to develop the AKT and the ABS included consultation with sleep experts and OSA patients. The psychometric properties of the AKT and ABS were then investigated in a clinical sample of 81 OSA patients and 33 healthy, non-sleep disordered adults.


RESULTS
Results suggest both measures are easily understood by OSA patients, have adequate internal consistency, and are readily accepted by patients. A preliminary investigation of the validity of these tools, conducted by comparing patient data to that of the 33 healthy adults, revealed that apnea patients knew more about OSA, had more positive attitudes towards continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment, and attributed more importance to treating sleep disturbances than non-clinical groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the results of psychometric analyses of these tests suggest these measures will be useful clinical tools with numerous beneficial applications, particularly in CPAP compliance studies and apnea education program evaluations.
Smith
Simon
S
The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia Q 4070, Australia. s.smith@psy.uq.edu.au
Lang
Cathryne
C
Sullivan
Karen
K
Warren
Judith
J
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011175:Positive-Pressure Respiration; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020181:Sleep Apnea, Obstructive / Q000523:psychology*