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Somatic syndromes, insomnia, anxiety, and stress among sleep disordered breathing patients

  • Sleep Breathing Physiology and Disorders • Original Article
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Abstract

Objectives

We tested the hypothesis that the prevalence of somatic syndromes, anxiety, and insomnia among sleep disordered breathing (SDB) patients is correlated with their levels of somatic arousal, the symptoms of increased sympathetic nervous system tone under conditions of stress.

Methods

We administered the Body Sensation Questionnaire (BSQ; a 17-item questionnaire with increasing levels of somatic arousal scored 17–85) to 152 consecutive upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS) patients and 150 consecutive obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea (OSA/H) patients. From medical records, we characterized each patient in terms of the presence of syndromes and symptoms into three categories: somatic syndromes (six syndromes), anxiety (anxiety disorders, nightmares, use of benzodiazepines), and insomnia (sleep onset, sleep maintenance, and use of hypnotics). For the pooled sample of SDB patients, we modeled the correlation of the BSQ score with the presence of each syndrome/symptom parameter within each of the three categories, with adjustment for male vs. female.

Results

Mean BSQ scores in females were significantly higher than those in males (32.5 ± 11.1 vs. 26.9 ± 8.2; mean ± SD). Increasing BSQ scores significantly correlated with increasing prevalence rates of somatic syndromes (p < 0.0001), of anxiety (p < 0.0001), and of insomnia (p ≤ 0.0001). In general, females had higher prevalence rates of somatic syndromes and symptoms of anxiety than males at any BSQ score while rates of insomnia were similar.

Conclusions

In patients with SDB, there is a strong association between the level of somatic arousal and the presence of stress-related disorders like somatic syndromes, anxiety, and insomnia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care/Sleep Medicine, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA

    Tshering Amdo, Nadia Hasaneen & Avram R. Gold

  2. DVA Medical Center, Northport, NY, 11768, USA

    Tshering Amdo, Nadia Hasaneen & Avram R. Gold

  3. GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Health, Parsippany, NJ, 07054, USA

    Morris S. Gold

Authors
  1. Tshering Amdo
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  2. Nadia Hasaneen
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  3. Morris S. Gold
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  4. Avram R. Gold
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Avram R. Gold.

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No funding was received for this research.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Amdo, T., Hasaneen, N., Gold, M.S. et al. Somatic syndromes, insomnia, anxiety, and stress among sleep disordered breathing patients. Sleep Breath 20, 759–768 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-015-1296-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-015-1296-6

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