Page number not for citation purposes 1 Risk factors for postoperative throat pain after general anaesthesia with endotracheal intubation at the University of Gondar Teaching Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, 2014 Biruk Melkamu Gemechu 1 , Endale Gebreegziabher Gebremedhn 1,& , Tadesse Belayneh Melkie 1 1 Department of Anaesthesia, School of Medicine, Gondar College of Medicine and Health Sciences, the University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia & Corresponding author: Endale Gebreegziabher Gebremedhn, Department of Anaesthesia, School of Medicine, Gondar College of Medicine and Health Sciences, the University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia Key words: General anaesthesia, tracheal intubation, postoperative sore throat, risk factors Received: 19/08/2016 - Accepted: 14/06/2017 - Published: 16/06/2017 Abstract Introduction: Postoperative sore throat is listed from the top as patients’ most undesirable outcome in the postoperative period. It is bel ieved to originate from mucosal dehydration or edema, tracheal ischemia secondary to the pressure of endotracheal tube cuffs, aggressive oropharyngeal suctioning, and mucosal erosion from friction between delicate tissues and the endotracheal tube. Even if the problem was indicated in many literatures, it has never been studied in our country. The study aimed to assess prevalence and factors associated with postoperative sore throat among patients who were operated under general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation. Methods: Hospital based cross sectional study was conducted from February 25 - April 10, 2014 in Gondar University hospital. Patient interview and chart review were employed for data collection. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to determine the association. Results: A total of 240 out of 299 patients were included in this study with a response rate of 80.3%. The prevalence of postoperative sore throat within 48 hours after operation was 59.6%. Factors which had association with postoperative sore throat from the multivariate logistic regression were female sex (AOR = 3.3, 95% CI: 1.07, 10.375), repeated number of attempts to intubate (AOR = 3.291, 95% CI: 1.658, 6.531), and the use of nasogastric tube (AOR = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.174, 0.965) respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of postoperative sore throat was high in Gondar University Hospital. Awareness creation about the problem should be made for health professionals and postoperative sore throat management protocol need to be introduced. Pan African Medical Journal. 2017;27:127. doi:10.11604/pamj.2017.27.127.10566 This article is available online at: http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/27/127/full/ © Biruk Melkamu Gemechu et al. The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Pan African Medical Journal – ISSN: 1937- 8688 (www.panafrican-med-journal.com) Published in partnership with the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET). (www.afenet.net) Research Open Access