Relationships among nasal obstruction, daytime sleepiness, and quality of life.
OBJECTIVE
There has been growing awareness that nasal obstruction may impair various daily and social activities. We performed a questionnaire survey on a working population to clarify the relationships among nasal obstruction, daytime sleepiness, and quality of life (QOL).


METHODS
Seven thousand nine hundred eighty daytime workers were asked to complete questionnaires, and the data from 7,180 subjects without any missing answers were finally analyzed (90.0% of the total participants). The severity of nasal obstruction was graded into the following three categories: never/rarely, sometimes, and always/often. Daytime sleepiness and QOL were assessed by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey, respectively.


RESULTS
Younger subjects reported a higher degree of nasal obstruction. Subjects who reported a higher degree of nasal obstruction had higher daytime sleepiness and lower quality of life. Subjects with higher daytime sleepiness had lower quality of life. The degree of nasal obstruction was not associated with body mass index.


CONCLUSIONS
Taking into account the impact of nasal airway resistance on sleep-disordered breathing, the present results suggest that chronic nasal obstruction impairs QOL, at least partially, through excessive daytime sleepiness possibly caused by sleep-disordered breathing. We stress that sufficient and appropriate rhinologic treatment may improve the quality of daily and social activities of individuals with sinonasal diseases.
Udaka
Tsuyoshi
T
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, School of Medicine, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan.
Suzuki
Hideaki
H
Kitamura
Takuro
T
Shiomori
Teruo
T
Hiraki
Nobuaki
N
Fujimura
Takeyuki
T
Ueda
Narihisa
N
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015508:Nasal Obstruction / Q000150:complications*; D011788:Quality of Life; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000209:etiology*