Evaluating Hybrid Neural Network Architectures for Predicting Sleep Disorders From Structured Data

Abstract

The accurate diagnosis of sleep disorders is crucial for effective treatment and management, yet current methods often rely on subjective assessments and are not always reliable. This research examines the efficacy of various neural network architectures, including dense networks, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and innovative hybrid models, in predicting sleep disorders from structured health data. Our study focuses on comparing the performance of these models using metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score across a dataset comprising 400 individuals with detailed sleep and lifestyle data. Our findings demonstrate that while traditional models like dense networks and CNNs for structured data yield robust results, hybrid models, particularly the CNN-Transformer, significantly outperform others. This model effectively integrates convolutional layers with Transformer’s attention mechanisms, excelling in handling complex data interactions and providing superior predictive accuracy with an F1 score and accuracy reaching as high as 0.91. Conversely, RNN models, designed to capture temporal data dependencies, showed less efficacy, underscoring the importance of model selection aligned with data characteristics. This suggests that for datasets not exhibiting strong temporal features, models leveraging spatial relationships or advanced attention mechanisms are more suitable. This study not only advances our understanding of neural network applications in medical diagnostics but also highlights the potential of hybrid models in enhancing diagnostic accuracy. These insights could lead to significant improvements in the early detection and treatment of sleep disorders, thereby enhancing patient outcomes and contributing to the broader field of medical informatics.