Illness perceptions in obstructive sleep apnoea populations: patients do not believe that their symptoms are due to their sleep problems

Introduction: Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has been identifi ed as one of the most common sleep disorders in Western society. Continu-ous positive airways pressure (CPAP) has been shown to reduce OSA symptoms and associated health risks, however research has revealed surprisingly low rates of treatment use, as well as treatment uptake. One reason may be that patients do not believe that their symptoms are due to their sleep problems. This preliminary study assessed the relationships between illness representations, based on the Common Sense Model of Illness Behaviour, to sleep diffi culties and disease sever-ity in sample of patients attending a sleep clinic for a diagnostic sleep study.Methods: A prospective, longitudinal cohort study. Participants were recruited from a local sleep clinic, where they completed questionnaires at their diagnostic overnight sleep study. Questionnaires assessed Symptom complaints (e.g. sore throat, sore eyes, headache, fatigue, irritability) and whether patients attributed these to their sleep diffi cul-ties (Illness Identity) from the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire – Revised.Results: To date, the questionnaire has been completed by 517 partici-pants. At their overnight PSG, patients complained of an average of 6 symptoms (SD 3.5, 0–14), but over 1/5th (22%) reported that these were not due to their sleep diffi culties (M 3.5, SD 3.0, 0–15). Neither the number of symptoms reported (r = .02) nor the number of symp-toms patients attributed to their sleep diffi culties (r = .09) were related to the severity of their OSA (indicted by AHI).Discussion: These data suggest that there is a mismatch between patients’ perceptions about their illness and the diagnosis they are being given. Moreover, their experience of symptoms is not related to the objective severity of their condition.