Prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Impact of Menopause on It among Women of Rural Area of Pakistan

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep related disorder, and it is affected by number of factors including age, gender, obesity, educational status and menopause. However, in the presence of conflicting findings regarding impact of menopause on OSA, our study was aimed to check the prevalence of OSA in women and impact on it of menopause. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in around 3months from August 2020 to October 2020 in a rural area of Punjab, Pakistan. 205 participants were recruited according to set criteria of our study. Women with age from above 30 years to 60 years, who had regular menstrual cycles or had cessation of menses since at least one last year were enrolled in the study whereas women who had irregular menstrual cycles and were not willing to participate were excluded from the study. Data was collected by two questionnaires including self-structured proforma and STOP Questionnaire. Data analysis was done with the help of SPSS version 25. Different tests including Chi-square test and Independent Sample t-test were applied to evaluate the study variables. In general, current study indicates high prevalence (28.3%) of high risk of OSA among women, however, STOP score was higher among postmenopausal women (1.641 with SD±0.908) as compared to premenopausal women (1.073 SD±0.693)) which means that postmenopausal women had higher risk of development of OSA in comparison with premenopausal women. The association between OSA risk and menopause was statistically significant (p=0.001). The difference of score between premenopausal women and postmenopausal women was significant statistically (p=0.0001). In short, prevalence of OSA high risk is higher among postmenopausal women in comparison with premenopausal women and menopause affects OSA but the mechanism is still not clear.