Health service use more likely with sleep apnea in older patients

Key takeaways:

• The likelihood for hospitalization went up with vs. without sleep apnea.
• These findings demonstrate why it is important to diagnose and treat sleep apnea early.

The odds for future health service use in adults aged 50 years and older went up by 21% with the presence of sleep apnea, according to research presented at SLEEP 2024.

“Our research emphasizes the need for health care providers to identify, screen and effectively manage OSA in their patients to reduce preventable future health care utilization,” Christopher Kaufmann, PhD, MHS, assistant professor in the department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics at the University of Florida College of Medicine, told Healio.

“This may involve using tools like the STOP-BANG questionnaire for screening and referring patients as appropriate to sleep labs for accurate diagnosis,” Kaufmann continued. “Our findings also stress the importance of monitoring CPAP use and adherence as a means to promote positive health outcomes.”

Using 2016 and 2018 data from the U.S. Health Retirement Study, Kaufmann and colleagues assessed 20,115 individuals aged at least 50 years to determine how sleep apnea impacts the likelihood for health service usage (hospitalization, home health care and nursing home use).

“This dataset facilitates our ability to examine the connection between OSA and health service use nationally,” Kaufmann said.

As Healio previously reported, severe OSA raised the risk for hospital admittance with pneumonia and any infections compared with individuals who had normal breathing during sleep.

Within the total cohort, 11.8% of older individuals reported in 2016 that a doctor told them they had sleep apnea. The remaining patients did not report this sleep disorder.

Researchers adjusted for demographics, BMI, health conditions and depressive symptoms when evaluating how sleep apnea was linked to health service utilization in 2018.

In logistic regression analysis, individuals with vs. without sleep apnea faced a heightened likelihood for future health service use (adjusted OR = 1.21; 95% CI, 1.02-1.43).

Of the three types of services assessed, researchers observed a significant relationship between sleep apnea and future hospitalization (aOR = 1.21; 95% CI, 1.02-1.44). The odds for future home health care service use were also higher among those with vs. without sleep apnea (aOR = 1.23; 95% CI, 0.99-1.54), but this did not reach statistical significance.

“Future studies should explore links between OSA and health service utilization using real-world datasets that have emerged in recent years,” Kaufmann said.

“The adoption of EHR-based systems has yielded an unprecedented opportunity to better understand other factors related to the links between OSA and health service utilization; for example, process-based and CPAP usage measures that may only be available in medical records,” he added. “Utilizing these data could help to identify patient-centered approaches for addressing the condition more comprehensively.”

Reference:

• Study finds that older adults with sleep apnea have higher odds of hospitalization. https://www.sleepmeeting.org/study-finds-that-older-adults-with-sleep-apnea-have-higher-odds-of-hospitalization/. Published June 3, 2024. Accessed June 5, 2024.