Intubation Difficulty Scale and Influence of Preoperative Airway Assessment Tests in Elective Surgical Patients

Introduction: The Intubation Difficulty Scale (IDS) is a method analogous to the Glasgow coma scale score. The values of the individual components may be documented to offer detail of the difficulties encountered. Preoperative airway assessment tests of patients in whom intubation is difficult would decrease the rate of anesthesia associated adverse complications. Aim: This study aimed to determine the prevalence difficult intubation and find out the sensitivity and specificity of the preoperative airway assessment tests among adult patients who were scheduled for elective surgery under general anesthesia patients in Aliabad Teaching Hospital, Kabul Afghanistan. Method: A cross sectional study was conducted among 341 patients based on the consecutive sampling. Independent variables recorded by observing preoperatively each preoperative airway assessment tests. Initial data was entered into an excel sheet and then exported to SPSS Statistics version 22 for further analysis. Results: A total of 341 patients were included in the study. The mean age of the participants was 36.98 ± 15.048 years. The preoperative airway assessment tests associated with difficult intubation was investigated using bi-variable analysis with a p-value less than 0.001. The study revealed that ability to prognath and mouth opening had poor sensitivity but good specificity in assessing negative and positive predictive values. The overall prevalence for difficult intubation were 26.7 %, 24.3 % of the patients were had slight difficulty, 2.3 % moderate to major difficulty in intubation, we were unable to intubate one patient using operation theatre’s available instruments. Conclusion: The overall prevalence for difficult intubation were 26.7 %. Amongst all difficult intubation, 24.3 % of the patients were had slight difficulty, 2.3 % moderate to major difficulty in intubation. Combinations of independent variables add some valuable indicative importance compared to the value of each test alone.