Snoring: is a reliable assessment possible?

Abstract

Purpose It is not easy to assess how severe and annoying a patient's snoring is. Solid parameters are lacking; snorers cannot deliver a reliable self-assessment and it is uncertain whether bed partners' statements can be relied upon. The purpose of the present study was therefore to investigate whether and how well snoring assessment based on acoustic parameters and bed partners' reporting agree. Methods In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on snoring treatment, several acoustic parameters [snoring index (SI), percentage snoring time (ST), sound pressure level, sound energy, loudness, psychoacoustic annoyance and psychoacoustic snore score (PSS)] were measured in 18 subjects during 24 polysomnographies. Bed partners also assessed snoring annoyance and loudness as well as treatment outcome. Results No correlation was found between the subjective annoyance caused by snoring and the acoustic parameters. Regarding perceived loudness, there was a moderate, significant correlation with loudness (N 5) and PSS over the hour with the highest SI. SI, ST, LAeq and maximum sound pressure level dB(A) max showed no significant correlation. After the intervention only mean sound energy LAeq over the entire night showed a significant correlation (r s = 0.782; p = 0.022) with bed partners' assessments. However, this result was not confirmed in the second control night. Conclusions The non-existent or only weak correlation between bed partners' ratings and objective parameters indicate that snoring severity should be evaluated with caution. Neither acoustic parameters, at least for one measurement over just one night, nor bed partners' ratings should be used as the sole basis for snoring assessment.

The Annoying Nature of Snoring Sounds Is Not Only about Intensity: A Pilot Study on Exposed Test Subjects

“…In addition, in line with a previous study [ 21 ], the present study suggested that the perceived annoyance of snorers’ bedpartners may be used as a reliable assessment of the severity/annoying degree of snoring. However, some other studies suggested the potential influence of listeners’ subjectivities on perceived annoyance of snoring sound and concluded that subjectively evaluated snoring severity should be interpreted with caution [ 13 , 14 ]. Regarding the conflicting results on listeners’ subjectivities and perceived annoyance of snoring sound, this may be due to different study designs.…”

“…Given the importance of the subjective annoyance level, as perceived by bedpartners, researchers also explored the possibility to subjectively evaluate snoring [ 10 , 11 ]. Previous studies investigated the association between the acoustic characteristics of snoring sound and subjective annoyance level, and reported conflicting results [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Fischer et al [ 12 ] found that a score calculated based on the loudness and roughness of snoring sound showed a highly significant correlation with perceived annoyance.…”

“…Fischer et al [ 12 ] found that a score calculated based on the loudness and roughness of snoring sound showed a highly significant correlation with perceived annoyance. Another study from Fischer et al [ 13 ] reported that mean sound energy over the entire night showed a significant association with bedpartners’ assessments of improvement in snoring severity after treatment. In addition, Rohrmeier et al [ 16 ] found that perceived annoyance showed highly significant corrections with the mean A-weighted sound pressure level (dBA) and the 5th percentile of loudness.…”

Noninvasive and point-of-care screening of snoring by breath monitoring using ion-in-conjugation polymer-based humidity sensors

“…2 Previous snoring monitors considered several acoustical indexes, such as sound pressure level, sound energy, and percentage snoring time. 3 Since one of the main constituents of exhaled gas is water molecules, the humidity of exhaled gas varies with the intensity and rate of breathing. Hence, applying humidity sensors with ultratime stability to sensing snoring is feasible.…”

Perceptual snoring as a basis for a psychoacoustical modeling and clinical patient profiling

“…Attempts have been made in literature to classify and characterize breathing sounds such as snoring through acoustical [5] and psycho-acoustical features such as annoyance [6,7]. If snoring while sleeping at home is the condition, acoustical and psychoacoustic measures of snoring events in the natural home environment will be most appropriate if ambient acoustical influences can be controlled [8].…”