Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Community-Based Education
Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Community-Based Education
Date
2022
Authors
Keely, Erin
Leonard, Arika
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Abstract
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder that is relatively unknown to
the general population. Undiagnosed OSA can have detrimental problems overtime, along
with a lack of education on OSA within communities, requires a multidisciplinary approach to
implement community-based education. A literature review was performed on various
educational approaches and the effects on OSA knowledge base, diagnosis, screening, and
adherence rates. A quality improvement scholarly project was performed at a pulmonary and
sleep medicine clinic in Orlando, Florida, with a primary purpose to improve participant
knowledge base on OSA in patients at risk of OSA, quantified by pretest and posttest scores
before and after an OSA PowerPoint presentation video. The secondary purposes of this
scholarly project were to improve OSA diagnosis rates after watching the video, quantified by
the number of sleep studies obtained by participants within two months and to make evidence based recommendations to implement the use of the OSA video into routine patient care at the
pulmonary and sleep medicine clinic to increase participant knowledge of OSA in participants
who are at risk and sleep studies obtained by these participants. Of the 6 patients at the
pulmonary and sleep medicine clinic who volunteered to participate in the scholarly project, 5
patients were high risk for OSA. All 6 participants completed the first pretest and posttest.
However, only 2 participants completed the second posttest and obtained a sleep study, while the
remaining 4 participants refused to answer, limiting the statistical significance of our project. In
addition, there was an 11% increase in posttest scores, indicating that our educational video
improved the OSA knowledgebase of patients at risk of OSA.