Dysphagia Following Endotracheal Intubation: Frequency, Risk Factors and Characteristics

Oropharyngeal dysphagia following endotracheal intubation occurs frequently, however, both the incidence and associated risk factors vary across the literature. This dissertation is comprised of three studies that investigate the frequency, associated risk factors and characteristics of post-extubation dysphagia along with the relation between intubation duration and swallowing outcomes with a focus on CV surgery. First, we conducted a systematic review in order to determine dysphagia frequency according to patient diagnoses and the association between dysphagia and intubation time. We conducted searches using fourteen electronic databases along with manual searching of journals and grey literature. Our critical appraisal utilized the Cochrane Risk of Bias Assessment and GRADE tools. Our second study assessed dysphagia frequencies according to four intubation duration strata on consecutive patients following CV surgery: I (Ph.D.2017-03-31 00:00:0