The perception and reality of sleep quality and diagnostic yield in sleep telemetry services: a feasibility study

Objective: Sleep video telemetry (SVT) aids diagnosis of sleep disorders and is available as a home or hospital test. Locally, it remains unknown if sleep quality and diagnostic yield differ between SVT locations. This study explores if a randomised trial (RT) to investigate this is achievable in terms of outcome measure availability and recruitment rate. Design: Prospective feasibility study. Study sample: 27 SVT patients (3 home, 24 inpatient) completed a questionnaire on preferred SVT location, opinion of proposed research and willingness to participate in an RT. Their SVT reports were checked for physiological and diagnostic variables required as outcome measures in the proposed RT. Results: Most patients had a preferred SVT location, but valued the concept of research: 19/27 were willing to participate in an RT. However, only 7/19 were eligible, mostly due to respiratory-related referrals, which currently precludes home SVT; this led to a sub-optimal projected RT recruitment rate of 0.58/week. Physiological variables were not consistently obtainable from SVT reports. Conclusion: Attempting introduction of respiratory monitoring to home SVT is proposed with a view to running a future RT inclusive of respiratory-related referrals and therefore a higher recruitment rate. An SVT report template is recommended for the future RT.