Table 3 Intubation difficulty, intubation time, and soft tissue injury

	Control(n = 68)	Exercise(n = 70)	P ^a	Estimated difference (95% CI)	Odds ratio(95% CI)
Number of attempts	1.1 ± 0.4	1.1 ± 0.2	0.253	0.1(− 0.0 to 0.2)
Additional operator	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Alternative techniques required	8 (11.8%)	4 (5.7%)	0.207		0.5 (0.1 to 1.6)
Cormack-Lehane grade (I/II/IIIa/IIIb)	42/20/2/4	45/19/3/3	0.746
Increased lifting force	28 (41.2%)	17 (24.3%)	0.034		0.5 (0.2 to 1.0)
Laryngeal pressure required	24 (35.3%)	13 (18.6%)	0.027		0.4 (0.2 to 0.9)
Vocal cord mobility (adduction)	2 (2.9%)	0 (0%)	0.241
IDS	1.6 ± 2.1	1.0 ± 1.7	0.086	0.6(−0.1 to 1.2)
IDS group (easy/slight difficulty/moderate to major difficulty)	31/31/6	44/23/3	0.112
Intubation time (s)	18.8 ± 23.1	12.5 ± 5.4	0.032	6.3 (0.5 to 12.0)
Soft tissue injury	14 (20.6%)	4 (5.7%)	0.009		0.2 (0.1 to 0.8)

Continuous values are shown as mean ± SD. Categorical variables are expressed as patient numbers (%) or numbers
IDS Intubation difficulty scale
^aComparisons between the two groups using Student’s t-test (continuous variables), chi-square or Fisher’s exact test (categorical variables), and linear-by-linear association (Cormack-Lehane grade)

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