Research

Mixed

Habitual snoring occurring 'every night' is a significant predictor of OSA, whereas less frequent snoring is not, and daytime sleepiness (EDS) is only predictive when it manifests as dozing while driving.

Not all snoring or sleepiness indicates OSA. For snoring, it must be habitual (every night) to be a strong predictor. For daytime sleepiness, general tiredness is not predictive, but specifically dozing off while driving is a significant red flag for OSA.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
With the exception of snoring, grading a 'yes' response had no additional benefit... However, in the present report, snoring was only significant if it occurred every night. A tendency to doze whilst driving proved to be the only circumstance in which EDS was more common among OSA than non-OSA patients.
PC Deegan et al. · European Respiratory Journal · 1996

Why this rating

Large sample size, clear statistical differentiation between frequency levels.

Source

Predictive value of clinical features for the obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome

PC Deegan et al. · European Respiratory Journal · 1996

DOI 10.1183/09031936.96.09010117

cohort · n=250Cited 291×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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