The Swiss Narcolepsy Scale (SNS) and its short form (sSNS) for the discrimination of narcolepsy in patients with hypersomnolence: a cohort study based on the Bern Sleep–Wake Database

Previous studies reported high sensitivity and specificity of the Swiss Narcolepsy Scale (SNS) for the diagnosis of narcolepsy type 1. We used data from the Bern Sleep–Wake Database to investigate the discriminating capacity of both the SNS and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) to identify narcolepsy type 1 and type 2 in patients with central disorders of hypersomnolence (CDH) or sleepy patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). In addition, we aimed to develop a simplified version of the SNS. We created the two-item short-form SNS (sSNS), based on the discriminative capability of the models including all possible combinations of the five questions of the SNS. Using the previously published co-efficiencies, we confirmed the high capacity of the SNS in identifying narcolepsy type 1. The updated SNS (based on new co-efficiencies and cutoff) and the sSNS showed high capacity and were both superior to ESS in identifying narcolepsy type 1. The sSNS correlated significantly with the SNS (r = − 0.897, p < 0.001). No scale showed sufficient discrimination for narcolepsy type 2. This is the largest cohort study that confirms the discriminating power of SNS for narcolepsy type 1 in patients with hypersomnolence and the first study to assess its discriminative power for narcolepsy type 2. The easy-to-use and easy-to-calculate short-form scale has a high discriminating power for narcolepsy type 1 and may be used as screening tool, especially among general practitioners, to identify patients and accelerate their referral to a center of expertise.