Sleep apnea and depression: the possibility of a diagnostic error

Abstract

Obstructive sleep apnea and major depressive disorder share a significant number of symptoms, such that it can raise the possibility that there are people with a depression diagnosis that suffer from an undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea syndrome as the cause of their psychiatric symptoms. In this work arguments are provided about how a person with sleep apnea satisfies diagnostic criteria for depression, and that a physician that does not consider them as a hypothesis may make an erroneous diagnosis. Given that the treatment for both pathologies differs, it is concluded that it is important to incorporate the inquiry of sleep apnea in depression diagnostic algorithms and to study its incidence in the population with depressive symptoms.