RESUMO
PURPOSE: The diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by polysomnography (PSG) is time-consuming and expensive. The STOP-BANG questionnaire (SBQ) is an adequate screening tool and easily applied. We aimed to validate the Bahasa Malaysia version for use in sleep clinic. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the sleep clinic. Standard forward-backward method was used for translation. Patients were required to answer a translated version of the questionnaire in Bahasa Malaysia and underwent a PSG study. Apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of five and more was considered diagnostic. SBQ score was divided into two groups, less than 3 and 3 or more to determine its correlation with mild, moderate, or severe OSA. The reliability of the questionnaire was compared against that of the PSG result. RESULTS: We recruited 134 patients with mean age of 41.22 ± 12.66 years old. 9.7% patients have low risk, 48.5% moderate risk, and 41.8% high risk of OSA by SBQ scoring. 28.4% of patients had mild, 33.6% had moderate, and 38.0% had severe OSA by PSG. The Bahasa Malaysia version had sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive value of 61.42, 71.05, and 84.06 and 41.54% respectively. When the score is higher, the probability increases for patients to have moderate or severe OSA. SBQ score showed moderate value of agreement to AHI. CONCLUSIONS: The Bahasa Malaysia version of SBQ is a valid tool for the identification of OSA. It is useful to detect patients at risk for further investigation and management.