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 Background: Identifying 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. Objective: To assess the incidence and factors associated with postoperative sore throat among patients undergoing elective surgery under general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation. Methods: Hospital 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. Results: A 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. Conclusions: Larger ETT size and multiple number of attempts of laryngoscopy might increase the risk of developing postoperative sore throat. Highlights: