Perioperative Respiratory Adverse Events Among Pediatric Surgical Patients in University Hospitals in Northwest Ethiopia; A Prospective Observational Study

Perioperative respiratory adverse events (PRAEs) are frequent among pediatrics surgical patients and are accountable for 3/4 of perioperative critical incidents and 1/3 of cardiac arrests. Assess the prevalence and factors associated with PRAEs among pediatric surgical patients in University Hospitals in Northwest Ethiopia, 2020. After ethical approval obtained prospective observational study was conducted among 210 pediatric surgical patients. Perioperative respiratory adverse events were defined as the occurrence of any episode of single/combination of coughing, breath holding, hypoxemia, laryngospasm and bronchospasm. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression analyses were performed and variables with < 0.05 at 95% confidence interval were considered as statistically significant. The prevalence of PRAEs was 26.2% (CI: 20.5-30.9%). A total of 129 episodes of PRAEs were occurred and of them, 89 (69.0%) were occurred in the postoperative period. Desaturation was the predominant adverse event which was observed 61 (47.3%) times. Age