Association of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and severity of COVID-19: A hospital based observational study.

kar, A.; Saxena, K.; Goyal, A.; Pakhare, A. P.; Khurana, A.; Saigal, S.

Introduction: OSA has been postulated to be associated with mortality in COVID19, but studies are lacking thereof. This study was done to estimate prevalence of OSA in patients with COVID-19 using various screening questionnaires and to assess effect of OSA on outcome of disease. Methodology: In this prospective observational study, consecutive patients with RTPCR confirmed COVID 19 patients were screened for OSA by different questionnaires (STOPBANG, Berlin Questionnaire, NoSAS and Epworth Scale). Association between OSA and outcome (mortality) and requirement for respiratory support was assessed. Results: In study of 213 patients; screening questionnaires for OSA {STOPBANG, Berlin Questionnaire (BQ), NoSAS} were more likely to be positive in patients who died compared to patients who survived. On binary logistics regression analysis, age[≥]55 and STOPBANG score [≥]5 were found to have small positive but independent effect on mortality even after adjusting for other variables. Proportion of patients who were classified as high risk for OSA by various OSA screening tools significantly increased with increasing respiratory support (p<0.001 for STOPBANG, BQ, ESS and p=0.004 for NoSAS). Conclusion: This is one of the first prospective studies of sequentially hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID 19 status who were screened for possible OSA. This study shows that OSA could be an independent risk factor for poor outcome in patients with COVID19.