SUBJECTIVE ESTIMATES OF SLEEP DIFFER FROM POLYSOMNOGRAPHIC MEASUREMENTS IN OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP-APNEA PATIENTS

It is well established that, as a group, insomnia patients overestimat e sleep onset latency (SOL) and underestimate total sleep time (TST) w hen compared to objective polysomnographic (PSG) findings. Whether a s imilar phenomenon occurs with other sleep disorders is not fully estab lished. We compared the PSC sleep of 84 patients with suspected sleep apnea (SA) to their subjective experience of sleep reported on a sleep diary the morning after PSG testing. Both patients with SA (SA+) and those without (SA-) tended to overestimate SOL, but the SA+ group (n = 50) made larger overestimations (p < 0.02). The SA+ and SA- groups al so differed in their accuracy at estimating TST, with SA+ patients und erestimating TST (p < 0.05). These findings support the premise that m arked discrepancies between subjective and PSG-determined sleep may no t be limited to insomnia, but present in other sleep disorders as well , and should be appreciated by practitioners when obtaining sleep hist ories.