Comparison of “the STOP-Bang” and “the Modified Neck Circumference” obstructive sleep apnea screening questionnaires

Abstract

Background: This study was designed to determine the degree of correlation between two obstructive
sleep apnea (OSA) questionnaires, the validated ‘STOP-Bang’ questionnaire and ‘Flemons’ Modified Neck
Circumference (MNC)’ questionnaire which had been used at our hospital for many years.
Methodology: With IRB approval and written informed patient consents, 197 adult outpatients presenting
for gastroenterological procedures were randomly screened for OSA risk using both the STOP-Bang and
the MNC questionnaires. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to measure the statistical
dependence of the scores calculated from the two questionnaires.
Results: The Spearman’s correlation between the STOP-Bang questionnaire score and the MNC
questionnaire score was 0.82 (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: There is a strong correlation between the STOP-Bang and the MNC questionnaires as
demonstrated in this study. Our successful experience with the MNC questionnaire justify conduction of
a randomized controlled trial to test the validity of the MNC questionnaire.