Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a prevalent sleep-related breathing disorder with substantial disease burden. While the OSA management status in China is unclear. This study aimed to identify barriers and unmet needs in current OSA diagnosis and treatment from both physician and patient perspectives.
METHODS: One-on-one online semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the perceptions of OSA management from physicians and patients. The interview outline was developed with iterative clinical experts consulting. Physicians experienced in OSA management and patients with diagnosed OSA were recruited from eight hospitals across Mainland China. Thematic analysis was adopted to identify and categorize qualitative contexts.
RESULTS: Eight physicians and eight patients completed the interviews. The interviews revealed that current OSA management in China consist of non-invasive ventilation, surgery, lifestyle intervention, and pharmacotherapy. From the physicians’ perspective, major challenges spanned three aspects, including insufficient patient awareness, inadequate clinical prioritization among physicians, and disparities in OSA-related resources allocation, particularly regarding the sleep monitoring equipment across primary and tertiary hospitals. Besides, the absence of multi-disciplinary collaboration mechanisms was identified as a critical bottleneck of OSA management. From the patients’ perspective, barriers varied according to individual care-seeking experiences and predominantly encompassed limited disease awareness, cumbersome medical processes, lack of comprehensive treatment guidance, and out-of-pocket economic burden. In response to these challenges, both perspectives expressed expectations across three priority areas: (1) scaling up evidence-informed public awareness campaigns and health literacy interventions; (2) developing and implementing more convenient, accessible, and integrated care pathways to enhance patient engagement and treatment adherence; and (3) promoting health insurance coverage and financial support mechanisms to meaningfully reduce out-of-pocket expenditures.
CONCLUSIONS: OSA management in China faces challenges covering low public awareness, disparities in resources allocation, and potential economic burden. Addressing these issues through promoting disease education, OSA-related devices equipment, and insurance coverage is important.