Yordanka Yamakova‡, Viktoria Ilieva‡Corresponding author: Viktoria Ilieva ( vicktoria.ilieva@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Nikolay Kyuchukov © Yordanka Yamakova, Viktoria Ilieva. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Yamakova Y, Ilieva V (2026) Health-related quality of life in obese patients with isolated obstructive sleep apnea and obstructive sleep apnea with obesity hypoventilation syndrome on home non-invasive ventilation. Journal of Biomedical and Clinical Research 19: 141-151. https://doi.org/10.3897/jbcr.e184759 |  |
Introduction: It is well known that sleep-related breathing disorders like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) decrease quality of life and increase morbidity and mortality. OSA patients with good adherence to nighttime CPAP report improvement of their daily functioning, social interactions, emotional functioning, daytime sleepiness, and other symptoms. In OHS, both CPAP and non-invasive ventilation (NIV) show improvement in quality of life if prescribed accurately.
Methods: We recruited 60 newly diagnosed obese patients with OSA and divided them into two groups: isolated – iOSA (n = 32) and OHS-OSA (n = 28). The health-related quality of life of all subjects was measured at baseline and after 3 months of treatment via the Interviewer Administered version of the EQ-5D-5L questionnaire.
Results: The baseline EQ-5D value of the iOSA group (Median: 0.836; IQR: 0.113) was significantly higher than that of the OHS-OSA overlap syndrome (Median: 0.67; IQR: 0.209) (p < 0.001). Three months after treatment, both groups had increased their EQ-5D value significantly: The iOSA group from median: 0.836 with IQR: 0.113 to median:1 with IQR: 0 (p < 0.001), and the OHS-OSA group from median: 0.67 with IQR: 0,209 to median: 0.874 with IQR: 0.137 (p < 0.001) respectively. When we compared the EQ-5D values after treatment between the two groups, we observed the same statistically significant difference as before treatment (p < 0.001).
Conclusion: NIV therapy makes a huge difference in the HRQoL of OHS-OSA patients, though it does not reach a subjective perception of full health like in subjects with iOSA.