Abstract 1447

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to compare the effect of education, race and socioeconomic status on parental compliance and perception of documented apnea monitors. Methods: A review of charts of all infants discharged on documented home apnea monitors, over a period of one year, from two separate hospitals (NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center) was performed (n=116). All infants were followed by a single apnea program. A review of all downloads during the first month of monitoring was done for each patient. Compliance was calculated as number of days monitor used/total number of days in the interval. The % of false alarms was used as a measure of the parent's ability to understand the proper use of the apnea monitor. Parental perception of apnea monitor was determined by telephone survey after monitors were discontinued. Nominal data were compared using the student t-test and one way ANOVA when appropriate. Perception of apnea monitor use was analyzed using Chi-Squares test. A p-value of <0.05 was considered significant. Result: 75/116 patients were contacted by telephone follow-up. 75% of parents contacted perceived the apnea monitors as helpful. There were no differences in the number of parents who perceived the apnea monitor as helpful with respect to race, socioeconomic status and education. (Table) Conclusion: Apnea monitor compliance is significantly poorer in non-whites, patients of lower socioeconomic status and lower education. This reduction in compliance is not due to the inability to understand the proper use of the monitor or the perception of the monitor usefulness. We speculate that cultural differences may play a role in apnea monitor use.

Table 1 No caption available
Full size table