The preoperative risk factors of postoperative self-extubation in elderly patients.

OBJECTIVE: Self-extubation of tubes and catheters causes various adverse events in postoperative patients. We investigated preoperative risk factors associated with self-extubation.

DESIGN: A matched case-control study.

SETTING: Teikyo University Hospital.

PARTICIPANTS: Postoperative patients over 50 years old.

METHODS: Sixty-five patients with a comment in the incident report about self-extubation within 7 postoperative days were recruited for the case group. One hundred ninety-five matched patients in the control group were randomly recruited from an electronic medical record. This group was three times larger than the case group. The matching factors were age, sex, type of tube, duration of tube insertion, and year of the incident. Conditional multiple logistic regression analysis was performed.

RESULTS: Sixty-five self-extubation events occurred, and constituted 6.5% of 996 postoperative incident reports. Three significant preoperative risk factors were abdominal operation (odds ratio [OR], 3.21; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.05-10.83), history of dementia (OR, 10.71; 95% CI, 1.45-132.55), and preoperative hemoglobin level (OR, 0.77 per 1.0 g/dL increase; 95% CI, 0.62-0.96).

CONCLUSIONS: Elderly patients with a history of dementia and low preoperative hemoglobin are at a risk of postoperative self-extubation, especially after an abdominal operation. These predictors can contribute to the more effective prevention of perioperative self-extubation.