Development and validation of a questionnaire to identify patients with sleep apnea in Mexican population: Mexican questionnaire to identify sleep apnea.
OBJECTIVE
To develop and validate a questionnaire to identify patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in Mexican population.


METHODS
We performed a cross-sectional study to develop and validate an instrument in Spanish language, consistent in an 18-item questionnaire. We enrolled patients seen from July 2008 to August 2009. We evaluated the internal consistency with the Kuder Richardson coefficient, a value greater than 0.70 was considered a good index correlation. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive factor was obtained with standard methods by comparison with polysomnographic results. Validity of Mexican questionnaire at baseline and follow-up was assessed using Pearson correlations coefficient.


RESULTS
We enrolled 100 patients. The initial pool comprised 25 items, four items were considered confusing and they were omitted; then, a preliminary questionnaire comprising 21 items was obtained, and three items were removed by presenting a response rate lesser than 90%, yielding a total of 18 items for the final questionnaire. This evaluation was performed stratifying in groups related to severity of illness. Snoring was the question with the greatest sensitivity to detect OSA; and obesity class I was the criteria with greatest specificity to detect OSA.


CONCLUSIONS
The screening tool proposed in this study has the advantages of being quick, inexpensive, easy to apply and reproducible, and the result has reliability with acceptable sensitivity; this is a symptom-based questionnaire with good predictive ability and it will avoid unnecessary sleep studies in the subjects who are not at high risk for having OSA.
Romero-López
Zaira
Z
Pulmonology Department, Hospital General, La Raza National Medical Center, IMSS, México City, Mexico. zaira_doctora@yahoo.com.mx
Ochoa-Vázquez
María Dolores
MD
Mata-Marín
José Antonio
JA
Ochoa-Jiménez
Luis Gerardo
LG
Rico-Méndez
Favio Gerardo
FG
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008800:Mexico; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020181:Sleep Apnea, Obstructive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult