Epworth Sleepiness Scale
Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea (OSAHS) is a common sleep disorder leading to apnea or hypoventilation. This will seriously affect our daily lives.
Do you often feel sleepy during the day, even unconsciously dozing off during meetings, commutes, or other daily activities? The Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) is a commonly used tool to help quantify this level of daytime sleepiness.
It simulates eight common quiet scenarios, such as reading, watching TV, and commuting. Please recall your recent daily routine, assess the likelihood of dozing off in each scenario, and rate it. The total score is the sum of the eight scores.
Its main advantages are its ease of use and intuitive scoring, effectively converting the patient’s subjective feeling of sleepiness into an objective quantitative indicator, facilitating the doctor’s assessment and follow-up.
To learn more about the screening scale, see the obstructive sleep apnea screening scale for more screening methods.
How likely are you to fall asleep in the following everyday situations? Consider this separately from just feeling tired. The four options represent.
- Never: would never fall asleep
- Rarely: slight chance of falling asleep
- Sometimes: moderate chance of falling asleep
- Often: high chance of falling asleep
What does my score mean?
On the 24-point scale, a score of >6 indicates sleepiness, >11 indicates excessive sleepiness, and >16 indicates dangerous sleepiness. The higher the ESS score, the higher the sleeping tendency or “daytime sleepiness”.
- 0-5 points Low-level normal daytime sleepiness
- 6-10 points High-level normal daytime sleepiness
- 11-12 points Mild excessive daytime sleepiness
- 13-15 points Moderate excessive daytime sleepiness
- 16-24 Severe excessive daytime sleepiness
A total score between 11 and 24 might suggest you’re feeling unusually sleepy during the day.
Common causes of daytime sleepiness include:
Insufficient or poor-quality sleep: Not getting enough duration or depth of sleep.
Unhealthy lifestyle: Such as an unbalanced diet or lack of physical activity.
Illness, stress, or medication effects: Physical discomfort, high levels of stress, or side effects of certain medications.
Hormonal changes: Such as physiological changes caused by puberty, pregnancy, or menopause.