Validation of Bahasa Malaysia STOP-BANG questionnaire for identification of obstructive sleep apnea

The diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by polysomnography (PSG) is time-consuming and expensive. The STOP-BANG questionnaire (SBQ) is an adequate screening tool and easily applied. We aimed to validate the Bahasa Malaysia version for use in sleep clinic.

A cross-sectional study was carried out in the sleep clinic. Standard forward-backward method was used for translation. Patients were required to answer a translated version of the questionnaire in Bahasa Malaysia and underwent a PSG study. Apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of five and more was considered diagnostic. SBQ score was divided into two groups, less than 3 and 3 or more to determine its correlation with mild, moderate, or severe OSA. The reliability of the questionnaire was compared against that of the PSG result.

We recruited 134 patients with mean age of 41.22 ± 12.66 years old. 9.7% patients have low risk, 48.5% moderate risk, and 41.8% high risk of OSA by SBQ scoring. 28.4% of patients had mild, 33.6% had moderate, and 38.0% had severe OSA by PSG. The Bahasa Malaysia version had sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive value of 61.42, 71.05, and 84.06 and 41.54% respectively. When the score is higher, the probability increases for patients to have moderate or severe OSA. SBQ score showed moderate value of agreement to AHI.

The Bahasa Malaysia version of SBQ is a valid tool for the identification of OSA. It is useful to detect patients at risk for further investigation and management.