en Clinical Neuroscience Clinical Neuroscience Original Original <p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify"><strong>Introduction:</strong> The Berlin questionnaire (BQ) is a common tool to screen for Obstructive Sleep&nbsp;Apnea (OSA) in the general population, but its application in the clinical sleep setting is still&nbsp;challenging. The aim of this study was to determine the specificity and sensitivity of the BQ&nbsp;compared to the apnea-hypopnea index obtained from polysomnography recordings obtained&nbsp;from a sleep clinic in Iran.<br> <strong>Methods:</strong> We recruited 100 patients who were referred to the Sleep Disorders Research Center&nbsp;of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences for the evaluation of suspected sleep-disorder&nbsp;breathing difficulties. Patients completed a Persian version of BQ and underwent one night of&nbsp;PSG. For each patient, Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) was calculated to assess the diagnosis and&nbsp;severity of OSA. Severity of OSA was categorized as mild when AHI was between 5 and 15,&nbsp;moderate when it was between 15 and 30, and severe when it was more than 30.<br> <strong>Results:</strong> BQ results categorized 65% of our patients as high risk and 35% as low risk for OSA.&nbsp;The sensitivity and the specificity of BQ for OSA diagnosis with AHI>5 were 77.3% and 23.1%,&nbsp;respectively. Positive predictive value was 68.0% and negative predictive value was 22.0%. Moreover,&nbsp;the area under curve was 0.53 (95% CI: 0.49 &ndash; 0.67, P=0.38).<br> <strong>Discussion:</strong> Our findings suggested that BQ, despite its advantages in the general population, is&nbsp;not a precise tool to determine the risk of sleep apnea in the clinical setting, particularly in the&nbsp;sleep clinic population.</p> Sleep apnea, Obstructive, Berlin questionnaire, Sleep clinic, Validation 43 48 http://bcn.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-715-2&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Behnam Khaledi-Paveh 1370031947532846008011 1370031947532846008011 No Organization Habibolah Khazaie 1370031947532846008012 1370031947532846008012 No Organization Marzie Nasouri 1370031947532846008013 1370031947532846008013 No Organization Mohammad Rasoul Ghadami 1370031947532846008014 1370031947532846008014 No Organization Masoud Tahmasian masoudtahmasian@gmail.com 1370031947532846008015 1370031947532846008015 Yes Sleep Disorders Research Center, School of Medicine, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran