Abstract

Background: Sleepiness-at-the-wheel has been identified as a major cause of highway accidents. The aim of our study is identifying the candidate measures for home-based screening of sleep disordered breathing in Taiwanese bus drivers, instead of polysomnography. Methods: Overnight polysomnography accompanied with simultaneous measurements of alternative screening devices (pulse oximetry, ApneaLink, and Actigraphy), heart rate variability, wake-up systolic blood pressure and questionnaires were completed by 151 eligible participants who were long-haul bus drivers with a duty period of more than 12 h a day and duty shifting. Results: 63.6% of professional bus drivers were diagnosed as having sleep disordered breathing and had a higher body mass index, neck circumference, systolic blood pressure, arousal index and desaturation index than those professional bus drivers without evidence of sleep disordered breathing. Simple home-based candidate measures: (1) Pulse oximetry, oxygen-desaturation indices by ≥3% and 4% (r = 0.87∼0.92); (2) Pulse oximetry, pulse-rising indices by ≥7% and 8% from a baseline (r = 0.61∼0.89); and (3) ApneaLink airflow detection, apnea-hypopnea indices (r = 0.70∼0.70), based on recording-time or Actigraphy-corrected total sleep time were all significantly correlated with, and had high agreement with, corresponding polysomnographic apnea-hypopnea indices [(1) 94.5%∼96.6%, (2) 93.8%∼97.2%, (3) 91.1%∼91.3%, respectively]. Conversely, no validities of SDB screening were found in the multi-variables apnea prediction questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, night-sleep heart rate variability, wake-up systolic blood pressure and anthropometric variables. Conclusions: The indices of pulse oximetry and apnea flow detection are eligible criteria for home-based screening of sleep disordered breathing, specifically for professional drivers.

Highlights

  • There is an increasing accumulation of evidence to indicate that sleepiness-at-the-wheel is a major cause of traffic accidents [1,2], a situation which places a huge monetary and personal cost on society [3].Professional long-haul bus drivers, compared with short-haul drivers, are the major group involved in this issue

  • The aim of this study is to evaluate candidate measures for a home-based screening of sleep disordered breathing in long-haul bus drivers by measuring various parameters from different devices or methods, such as pulse oximetry (PO), ALK, Actigraphy-corrected total-sleep-time (ACT), Multi-variables Apnea Prediction Questionnaire (MAP) Questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Heart Rate Variability Parameters (HRVp), and body mass index (BMI)

  • It might be noteworthy that the similarities of pulse oximetry measures with apnea hypopnea index by polysomnographic study (AHIpsg) would be improved if Actigraphy-corrected total-sleep-time (ACT) corrected for total sleep time

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Summary

Introduction

There is an increasing accumulation of evidence to indicate that sleepiness-at-the-wheel is a major cause of traffic accidents [1,2], a situation which places a huge monetary and personal cost on society [3].Professional long-haul bus drivers, compared with short-haul drivers, are the major group involved in this issue. The aim of our study is identifying the candidate measures for home-based screening of sleep disordered breathing in Taiwanese bus drivers, instead of polysomnography. Methods: Overnight polysomnography accompanied with simultaneous measurements of alternative screening devices (pulse oximetry, ApneaLink, and Actigraphy), heart rate variability, wake-up systolic blood pressure and questionnaires were completed by 151 eligible participants who were long-haul bus drivers with a duty period of more than 12 h a day and duty shifting. No validities of SDB screening were found in the multi-variables apnea prediction questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, night-sleep heart rate variability, wake-up systolic blood pressure and anthropometric variables. Conclusions: The indices of pulse oximetry and apnea flow detection are eligible criteria for home-based screening of sleep disordered breathing, for professional drivers

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Conclusion

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