Abstract:
Background: Hypoxemia is defined as low level of oxygen in the blood. The early postoperative period is
a critical time for developing hypoxemia. It is well known that the physiological response of the patient is
not reversed immediately after anesthesia and surgery. Supplemental oxygen should be considered in
patients who had operation under anesthesia at the potential time of post-operative period.
Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of early post-operative hypoxemia
and its contributing factors among operated patients under anesthesia during transportation to recovery
rooms and at recovery rooms.
Methods: A prospective observational study design was conducted to determine the incidence of early
post-operative hypoxemia and to identify the contributing factors among operated patients who had
undergone with anesthesia from March 1 to April 10, 2018. Data were checked on daily basis. Data were
entered to Epi Info and analyzed by statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20 software.
Descriptive statistics were used to summarize patient's sociodemographic data. Bivariate and multivariate
binary logistic regressions were conducted to see the existence of the association between
dependent and independent variables.
Results: 424 operated patients were included. The overall incidence of early post-operative hypoxemia
among the study subjects (424) was 113 (26.7%). The risk factors of early post-operative hypoxemia were
preoperative oxygen saturation <95%, general anesthesia, heart disease, subcostal incision, surgical
duration 120 min, muscular strength score 0 and hepato-biliary-pancreas surgeries.
Conclusion: The incidence of early postoperative hypoxemia was high and risk factors of early postoperative
hypoxemia were preoperative oxygen saturation<95%, general anesthesia, heart disease,
subcostal incision, surgical duration >120 min, muscular strength score 0 and hepato-biliary-pancreas
surgeries. Therefore, oxygen administration should be commenced to all risky patients for hypoxemia
during early post-operative period.
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Surgical Associates Ltd. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
