Study populations
The study group was made up of people who were diagnosed with OSA
between 2008 and 2011, and who had a diagnostic history based on
International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) Code G473 10th
Edition. Furthermore, for a more accurate analysis, the following
exclusion criteria were established: 1) Patients diagnosed with OSA
between 2011 and 2019. 2) Patients who had ICD-10 codes J381, J382, or
J383 or BVFL prior to being diagnosed with OSA. The control (non-OSA)
group consisted of patients who had not been diagnosed with OSA and were
matched using Propensity Score (PS) matching. PS was estimated with age
in mind to ensure that only patients with comparable tendencies to the
OSA group were included and to prevent any bias from confounders.
The control (non-OSA) group consisted of patients who had not been
diagnosed with OSA and were matched using Propensity Score (PS)
matching. PS was estimated with age, gender, economic position, and
comorbidities in mind to ensure that only patients with
similar tendencies to the OSA group were included and to eliminate any
bias from confounders. Non-OSA groupings were then chosen using greedy
method matching based on this PS. The non-OSA group had 8,415 patients
in total.(Figure 1)