Telemedicine-Supported CPAP Therapy in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Association with Treatment Adherence and Clinical Outcomes.

Background/

Objectives

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a highly prevalent disorder that significantly impacts quality of life and daily functioning. While continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy is effective, long-term adherence remains a challenge. This single-arm observational study aimed to evaluate clinical outcomes and adherence patterns during telemedicine-supported CPAP therapy and identify distinct phenotypic response clusters in Romanian patients with OSA.

Methods

This prospective observational study included 86 adults diagnosed with OSA, treated with ResMed Auto CPAP devices at "Victor Babeș" University Hospital in Timișoara, Romania. All patients were remotely monitored via the AirView™ platform and received monthly telephone interventions to promote adherence when necessary. Clinical outcomes were assessed through objective telemonitoring data. K-means clustering and t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) were employed to explore phenotypic response patterns.

Results

During telemedicine-supported CPAP therapy, significant clinical improvements were observed. The apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) decreased from 42.0 ± 21.1 to 1.9 ± 1.3 events/hour. CPAP adherence improved from 75.5% to 90.5% over six months. Average daily usage increased from 348.4 ± 85.8 to 384.2 ± 65.2 min. However, post hoc analysis revealed significant concerns about the validity of self-reported psychological improvements. Self-esteem changes showed negligible correlation with objective clinical measures (r < 0.2, all p > 0.1), with only 3.3% of variance being explained by measurable therapeutic factors (R2 = 0.033). Clustering analysis identified four distinct adherence and outcome profiles, yet paradoxically, patients with lower adherence showed greater self-esteem improvements, contradicting therapeutic causation.

Conclusions

Telemedicine-supported CPAP therapy with structured monthly interventions was associated with substantial clinical improvements, including excellent AHI reduction (22-fold) and high adherence rates (+15% after 6 months). Data-driven phenotyping successfully identified distinct patient response profiles, supporting personalized management approaches. However, the single-arm design prevents definitive attribution of improvements to telemonitoring versus natural adaptation or placebo effects. Self-reported psychological outcomes showed concerning patterns suggesting predominant placebo responses rather than therapeutic benefits. While the overall findings demonstrate the potential value of structured telemonitoring for objective CPAP outcomes, controlled trials are essential to establishing true therapeutic efficacy and distinguishing intervention effects from measurement bias.