Identifying Psychiatric Comorbidities for Obstructive Sleep Apnea in the Biomedical Literature and Electronic Health Record

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is one of the most common diseases among Americans, affecting between 5 and 20% of the population. While there is existing evidence of numerous comorbid conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure, the vast majority of this evidence has focused explicitly on cardiovascular morbidities and excluded any mental or behavioral disorders. The goal of this study was to examine psychiatric comorbidities of OSA in two types of sources: (1) biomedical literature in the MEDLINE/PubMed database (focusing on MeSH descriptors) and Semantic MEDLINE Database (SemMedDB; for semantic predications), and (2) electronic health record data in the MIMIC-III database. Approximately 300 unique psychiatric comorbidities were identified, ranked, and compared across MEDLINE/PubMed, SemMedDB, and MIMIC-III. The preliminary results highlight the potential of this multi-angled approach for suggesting opportunities for further investigation that may contribute to improving mental health in persons afflicted with OSA.