Using Motivational Enhancement Therapy to Achieve CPAP Compliance

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder in which an individual’s airway closes or partially closes several times in a night. OSA impacts an individual’s sleep quality if left untreated, which commonly leads to daytime sleepiness, headaches, cognitive impairments, and depressive or irritable mood. Most noteworthy are several health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, linked to untreated sleep apnea. Currently, the first-line treatment for moderate-to-severe OSA is continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which acts as a pneumatic splint to prevent the airway closures associated with the condition. Although it is an efficacious treatment, a significant problem is lack of patient adherence to CPAP therapy. Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), which includes Motivational Interviewing (MI), has been shown to improve treatment adherence in individuals treated with CPAP therapy. The Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project consisted of using MET/MI in a sleep medicine clinic in a West Texas border community to achieve patient CPAP treatment adherence