Psychological Well-Being in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome Associated With Obesity: The Relationship With Personality, Cognitive Functioning, and Subjective and Objective Sleep Quality

Abstract

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) syndrome severely affects psychological well-being. This syndrome frequently occurs in obesity; however, no previous study has investigated the level of psychological well-being in the case of OSA syndrome associated with obesity. In this work, we assessed the level of psychological well-being in fifty-two individuals affected by OSA syndrome and obesity through the Psychological General Well-Being Index. Moreover, we investigated the role of personality, cognitive functioning and attentional capabilities, subjective perception and objective measurement about sleeping, on the subjective perception of psychological well-being. Our sample reported a lower level of psychological well-being; the participants’ scores were below the normative cut-off in all components, except for depression symptoms. A lower expression of harm avoidance temperament and a lower level of daily sleepiness predicted a higher level of psychological well-being. Psychological well-being seemed to be severely affected in individuals affected by OSA syndrome and obesity. The temperament and subjective perception of daily alertness and sleepiness, rather than the syndrome severity, seemed to play a crucial role in the individual perception of the psychological well-being.

Short-Term Effects of a Multidisciplinary Residential Rehabilitation Program on Perceived Risks, Confidence Toward Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Treatment, and Self-Efficacy in a Sample of Individuals Affected by Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

“…Some final considerations can be done about our study. The first one regards the scores registered at the temperament and Character Inventory-Revised (Martinotti et al, 2008), according to which our participants showed higher expressions of novelty seeking temperamental trait in comparison with the normative data (Martinotti et al, 2008), in agreement with recently published results provided by our group (Scarpina et al, 2021). We also reported that our participants showed higher expressions of the persistent temperamental trait.…”

“…Finally, the interaction Condition × Time was not significant [F (3, 126) = 1.38; p = 0.25; partial etasquared p = 0.03] (Figure 2D). This pattern of results suggested that the performance of our participants was in agreement with the Flanker's effect, mirroring the results reported by Scarpina et al (2021). Crucially, after the rehabilitation, participants were faster in detecting the visual targets, suggesting an improvement of their attentional abilities.…”

“…In this study, we enrolled individuals who participated and completed the residential four-week rehabilitation program. As reported by our group (Scarpina et al, 2021), this choice might be likely to be done by highly persistent individuals. As mentioned in the "Methods" section, a large percentage of our participants was affected by high-risk obesity, as well as OSA syndrome occurs frequently in obesity (Schwartz et al, 2008).…”

“…This might be a piece of very crucial information because profiling the individual temperament through the questionnaires is a timeconsuming activity. Such questionnaires, which consist of a very large number of items, might not be completely suitable in the case of individuals affected by OSA syndrome, who generally experience a higher level of mental fatigue, as well as attentional difficulties and a lower level of alertness (Llewellyn et al, 2008;Wilson et al, 2013;Alomri et al, 2021;Legault et al, 2021;Scarpina et al, 2021).…”

Improving CPAP Adherence in Adults With Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: A Scoping Review of Motivational Interventions

“…Adherence to CPAP use might, therefore, depends on factors other than disease-specific characteristics or technological advancements in the delivery of positive airway pressure, including psychological, motivational, and environmental aspects. These encompass characteristics of negative affectivity and social inhibition associated with Type-D (distressed) personality (Broström et al, 2007 ; Copur et al, 2018 ), or symptoms of claustrophobia (Chasens et al, 2005 ), while research findings are inconclusive on the association between mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression, and adherence to CPAP (Stepnowsky et al, 2002 ; Garbarino et al, 2018 ; Yang et al, 2020 ; Scarpina et al, 2021 ). Additional factors include coping styles with challenging situations (active vs. passive), treatment expectations, and perceived self-efficacy (i.e., confidence in one's own ability to carry out a particular behavior) (Aloia et al, 2005 ; Olsen et al, 2008 ; Baron et al, 2011 ; Sawyer et al, 2011 ; Mehrtash et al, 2019 ), together with social support (Lewis et al, 2004 ; Xu et al, 2020 ), and marital satisfaction (i.e., problems with the bed partner) (Batool-Anwar et al, 2017 ; Luyster, 2017 ; Gentina et al, 2019 ).…”