Incidence and factors associated with postoperative sore throat for patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation at Debre Tabor General Hospital, North central Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

BackgroundIdentifying the factors associated with post-operative sore throat is important for better patient outcome. Supportive evidence towards it is not well-established in developing countries like Ethiopia. ObjectiveTo assess the incidence and factors associated with postoperative sore throat among patients undergoing elective surgery under general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation. MethodsHospital based cross-sectional study design was employed. Binary and multivariable logistic regression were used to measure association between the factors and the outcome at 95%CI using Adjusted Odds ratio (AOR). P-value <0.05 was used to declare statistical significance. ResultsA total of 123 patients were included in this study and the incidence of postoperative sore throat within 24 h after operation was 48.8%. In multivariate logistic regression, being female (AOR = 2.57, 95% CI: 1.13, 5.85) and multiple number of attempts (AOR = 3.81, 95% CI: 1.51, 9.62) had significant association with post-operative sorethroat. The ETT sizes of 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5 in millimeter were the factors statistically significantly associated with post-operative sore throat with p values of 0.01, 0.02 and 0.03 respectively. ConclusionsLarger ETT size and multiple number of attempts of laryngoscopy might increase the risk of developing postoperative sore throat.