Prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in patients with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is highly prevalent among patients with diabetes, intensifying the complications of the disease. Various studies in Iran have reported different prevalence rates. This systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to determine OSA prevalence in patients with type 2 diabetes in Iran. In this study, we evaluated five articles published in Persian and English. The articles were searched using the keywords of obstructive sleep apnea, sleep disordered breathing, sleep apnea, OSA, diabetes mellitus and Iran and all possible combinations of these terms in national databases of Scientific Information Database (SID) and Magiran and international databases of Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus with no time limit. Data were analyzed using the meta-analysis and random effects model. In addition, the heterogeneity between studies was assessed using I² statistic, and data analysis was performed in Stata version 11. In this study, five articles with a total sample size of 2360 were evaluated. According to the results, the prevalence of OSA in diabetic patients was reported to be 54.50% (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 39.90–69.09). In addition, the results were indicative of a lower prevalence of OSA in men (63.26%; 95% CI: 43.26–83.26), compared to women (66.22%; 95% CI: 57.60–74.84). According to the results of the study, there was a high OSA prevalence in patients with type 2 diabetes. Therefore, it is crucial to recognize diabetic patients at risk of OSA to decrease the adverse effects of this condition.