Background: Respiratory complications have been the focus of studies aiming to identify methods of reducing postoperative morbidity/mortality and controlling the cost of treatment. Objectives: To estimate the incidence of the respiratory complications in patients submitted to elective or urgent/emergency surgical procedures and determine any correlations between respiratory complications and potential risk factors. Method: A retrospective cohort study of patients submitted to elective or urgent/emergency surgery at a university hospital during 2001. The sample was restricted to patients hospitalized for at least 24 hours following surgery. Data were collected from patient charts and according to protocol. Results: Of the 5075 patients submitted to elective or urgent/emergency surgery during the year 2001, 1345 (25.5%) were included in the study. There was no statistically significant difference between elective surgery and urgent/emergency surgery in terms of respiratory complications. The incidence of respiratory complications was 11.7%. The most frequent complication (at 52.5%) was pneumonia. Overall mortality was 7.2% and 27.8% of deaths were related to respiratory complications. Conclusion: The incidence of postoperative respiratory complications was 11.7% (11.3% in elective surgery and 12.3% in urgent/emergency surgery). Pneumonia was the most frequent complication. The risk factors that correlated with respiratory complications were previous lung disease, use of a nasogastric tube, admission to the intensive care unit, endotracheal intubation and tracheostomy.

Keywords: Key words: Postoperative complications. Lung diseases/complications. Risk factors. Cohort studies