Background: Gestational obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Timely diagnosis and treatment are crucial to improve pregnancy outcomes. Conventional OSA screening questionnaires are less accurate, and various prediction models have been studied specifically during pregnancy.
Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed for multivariable prediction models of both development and validation involving diagnosis of OSA during pregnancy.
Results: Of 1262 articles, only 6 studies (3713 participants) met the inclusion criteria and were included for review. All studies showed high risk of bias for the construct of models. The pooled C-statistics (95%CI) for development prediction models was 0.817 (0.783, 0850), I2 = 97.81 and 0.855 (0.822, 0.887), I2 = 98.06 for the first and second-third trimesters, respectively. Only multivariable apnea prediction (MVAP), and Facco models were externally validated with pooled C-statistics (95%CI) of 0.743 (0.688, 0.798), I2 = 95.84, and 0.791 (0.767, 0.815), I2 = 77.34, respectively. The most common predictors in the models were body mass index, age, and snoring, none included hypersomnolence.
Conclusions: Prediction models for gestational OSA showed good performance during early and late trimesters. A high level of heterogeneity and few external validations were found indicating limitation for generalizability and the need for further studies.
Keywords: gestational obstructive sleep apnea; prediction model; systematic review and meta-analysis.