Abstract
BACKGROUND Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) prevalence ranges from 10% to 14% with obstructive sleep apnea prevalence of 1-4% in the general pediatric population. Its diagnosis and management require complex testing with polysomnography and a specialized care team, often at pediatric tertiary care centers. OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study are to describe the composition of pediatric tertiary care sleep clinics across Canada and describe wait times for clinic and diagnostic services across Canada. METHODS A 6-section questionnaire was sent to 16 sleep laboratory directors from tertiary pediatric sleep centers within Canada. Questions related to sleep clinic/laboratory capacity, referral volumes, wait times and the pandemic impact. RESULTS Responses were obtained from 15 of 16 sleep laboratory directors from tertiary pediatric sleep centers within Canada. Some provinces and territories have no sleep physicians. The total number of physicians providing coverage in the sleep clinics ranged from 2 to 15 across the country. Reported volume of patients waiting for their initial assessment was greater than 300 among 5 of the 13 centers (38%) that provided a response. The potential annual number of children in each province/territory per sleep study ranged greatly from 530 to 1,530. Potential annual number of polysomnograms performed ranged from 210 to 2,700 across provinces, allowing approximately 8,110 polysomnograms per year. CONCLUSION Our recent survey demonstrates that despite the continued need for more pediatric sleep resources in Canada there remains a shortage. We estimate that even if only children with SDB were tested with a polysomnogram there are 9.39 times more children with SDB than testing capacity without accounting for incident cases.
Published Version
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