RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea requires polysomnography which has limited availability. We aimed to develop and validate a risk score in predicting clinically significant OSA among the Thai population. METHODS: We reviewed polysomnographic studies performed in adults diagnosed with OSA in King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital from 2017 to 2019. 1798 and 450 patients were randomly enrolled in development and validation cohorts, respectively. A risk score was developed using multiple factor analysis and logistic regression. The NH-OSA score was externally validated at the Bangkok Christian Hospital. We compared its performance to existing screening scores (STOP-BANG, Berlin Questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and NoSAS score). RESULT: The NH-OSA score allocates 1 point for having neck circumference ≥ 13 inches (in women) or 15 inches (in men), 4 points for the presence of hypertension, 3 or 5 or 7 points for having a body mass index of 23-24.9, 25-30, ≥ 30 kg/m2, respectively, 9 points for the presence of moderate or severe snoring, and 5 points for age ≥ 40 years. With a cutoff value at 14 points, the sensitivity and specificity were 82.1% and 68.7%, respectively. The AUC was 0.75 (0.73-0.78). Both internal and external validation study revealed high AUC of 0.74 (0.68-0.80) and 0.75 (0.60-0.90), respectively. These were greater when compared to STOP-BANG, Berlin Questionnaire, ESS, and NoSAS score. CONCLUSION: NH-OSA is a newly developed tool which has good performance in predicting clinically significant OSA with high validity among the Thai population. It could help screen patients at risk of OSA for further investigation.