Prevalence of Snoring and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome among Nurses and Resident Doctors Working in a University Hospital

Objective: Sleep disorders are important public health issues that decrease the individuals’ quality of life by affecting their productivity and performance in a negative way. The frequency of sleep disorders among people who work shifts with irregular sleep patterns is apparent. For healthcare providers, most of whom work shifts, the available data related to obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) are insufficient. Also, this is the first study that has been conducted using an all-night polysomnography (PSG) for health staff in our country. In our study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of snoring and OSAS among the nurses and resident doctors working at our hospital.
Methods: Face-to-face interviews were performed with all nurses and resident doctors who worked at our hospital and agreed to participate in our study. All-night PSG examination was recommended to participants with concurrent witnessed apnea and/or excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) with snoring. The frequency of OSAS was evaluated in cases exposed to polysomnography, and those with and without OSAS were compared in terms of shift rates.
Results: The study included 257 participants. Of these, 63% were nurses and 37% were resident doctors; overall, 34.2% of the cases were male. The mean age was 28.8±3.7 (19-39) years and the mean body mass index was 24.03±3.85 kg/m2. Among the participants, the mean number of monthly night shifts was 7.6±3.8. Also, 28.8% of the participants (n=74) experienced snoring, 2.7% (n=7) had witnessed apnea, and 7.8% (n=20) had EDS (Epworth sleepiness scale≥11). Four (1.6%) of the 20 participants who were proposed to undergo PSG refused this examination. Sixteen cases were exposed to PSG (6.2%). According to the PSG results, the prevalence of OSAS was 4.7% among all healthcare providers and 5.1% among the health staff working shifts. Of the cases with OSAS, 91.7% (11/12) were working shifts while 83.3% (204/245) of those without OSAS were working shifts (p=0.697). All of the cases diagnosed with OSAS were male, but 31% of the cases without OSAS were male (p<0.001).
Conclusion: For those healthcare providers who are engaged in duties requiring significant amounts of attention and concentration, the symptoms related to sleep disorders should be questioned and diagnostic evaluation and treatment should be performed for suspected cases.