Abstract

Background: Shivering is an unpleasant complication in the postoperative period. It has been demonstrated that postoperative shivering is potentially risky, however the origin of postoperative shivering is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the association between the patient's time in bed and the onset of surgery with postoperative shivering in patients undergoing abdominal surgery. Methods: This cross-sectional study wasperformed from August to September 2018. The participants were all patients referred to Imam Reza hospital in Mashhad who were a candidate for any abdominal surgeries. Patients were selected according to the inclusion criteria and then divided into two groups of less than 20 minutes (N = 20) and more than 20 minutes (N = 14) based on the duration of bed rest until surgery. Postoperative shivering checklist was used to evaluate the severity of postoperative shivering. This checklist for post-operative shiver check is standardized in the anesthesia reference books (Miller Anesthesia Page 2319) and used in the study of Manouchehri et al. in 2007. Data were analyzed using SPSS-20 software which the significance level was considered to be less than 0.05. Results: There was a significant positive correlation (P=0.024) between the duration of bedtime and shivering intensity after surgery. Also data analysis shows a positive relationship between intensity of shivering with investigated variables such as age, difficulty of induction (P=0.012) and duration of bed rest until surgery. There was no relationship between shivering severity, gender, patient age and difficulty of induction with duration of bed rest until surgery. Also results showed that there was no significant correlation between education level and gender of patients with intensity of shivering. Conclusion: Our findings indicate a significant positive association between age and surgery duration with postoperative shivering. It seems that decreasing surgery duration can reduce the risk and incidence of postoperative shivering in patients undergoing abdominal surgery. © 2020 Lahore Medical And Dental College. All rights reserved.