Self-perceived sleep during the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test: how does it predict accidental risk in patients with sleep disorders?

Study Objectives: To determine whether the feeling of having slept or not during the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT) is associated with the occurrence of self-reported sleep-related traffic near misses and accidents in patients with sleep disorders.

Methods: This study was conducted in patients hospitalized in a French sleep center to perform a 4 × 40 min MWT. Relationship between mean sleep latency on the MWT, feeling of having slept or not during MWT trials and sleep-related near misses and accidents reported during the past year was analyzed.

Results: One hundred and ninety-two patients suffering from OSAS, idiopathic hypersomnia, narcolepsy, restless leg syndrome or insufficient sleep syndrome were included. One hundred and sixty-five patients presented no or one misjudgment of feeling of having slept during MWT trials while 27 presented more than two misjudgments. Almost half of the latter (48.1%) reported a sleepiness-related traffic near miss or accident in the past year versus only one third (27.9%) for the former (p < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression showed that patients with more than two misjudgments had a 2.52-fold (95% CI, 1.07-5.95, p < 0.05) increase in the risk of reporting a sleepiness-related near miss/accident.

Conclusions: Misjudgment in self-perceived sleep during the MWT is associated with the occurrence of self-reported sleepiness-related traffic near misses and accidents in the past year in patients suffering from sleep disorders. Asking about the perception of the occurrence of sleep during the MWT could be used to improve driving risk assessment in addition to sleep latencies.