P002 Positive airway pressure adherence in children with sleep apnea may be similar to adults

INTRODUCTION: Most pediatric patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are known to be treated with adenotonsillectomy (AT). However, in some of them, positive airway pressure (PAP) can be used for underlying diseases or in case of AT failure. Thus, PAP adherence and compliance were compared in pediatric OSA to adult OSA. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on 17 children and 167 adults who had performed polysomnography (PSG) and were prescribed PAP and followed up for more than 3 months from July 2018 to January 2023. Adherence was defined as the percentage of patients continuing to use PAP after prescription and compliance was defined as an average of more than 4 hours per night usage of 70% of the monitoring days. RESULTS: There were 11 males (64.7%) in pediatric and 141 males (84.4%) in adult patients. The mean age was 8.0 years (6.50-12.50) in pediatric and 50.0 years (41.00-58.00) in adult patients. The mean apnea hypopnea index (AHI) (37.0 vs 50.7) and Lowest O2 saturation (79.4% vs 75.5%) did not show any differences in the 2 groups. Longest apnea showed considerable differences (25.9 sec vs 50.8 sec) (p=0.000). After 18 months of PAP usage, AHI dropped from 37.0 to 5.1 vs 50.7 to 2.6, adherence decreased from 94.1% to 41.2% vs 90.4% to 38.9% (p=0.944), compliance reduced from 64.7% to 28.9% vs 67.0% vs 29.3% (p=0.268) in pediatric and adults groups. CONCLUSIONS: There were no significant differences in adherence and compliance with PAP in children compared to adults.