Background and objectives: High incidence of postoperative shivering leads to complications such as increased oxygen consumption, intracranial & intraocular pressure and pain. Some drugs including pethedine, dexamethasone and doxapram are used for prevention of shivering. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of dexamethasone and doxapram in prevention of post-anesthetic shivering.

  Methods: This study is a double blind clinical trial including 90 patients in ASA 1 and 2 classes. The patients were under general anesthesia for elective abdominal and chest surgery with same the anesthesia techniques. Samples were randomly divided into three groups (two drug received groups and one control group). First group received dexamethasone 0.1 mg/kg, the second group doxapram 0.75 mg/kg and the control group 3 ml of distilled water as injection. The visible shivering observed after each treatment. Collected data were analyzed using Chi-square, Fisher exact and ANOVA tests By SPSS 16 and p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.

  Results: Our results showed a significant difference between shivering in drug received and control groups. Shivering was significantly decreased in drug received groups (p = 0 . 05) but there was no significant difference between them.

  Conclusion: This study showed that both drugs of dexamethasone and doxapram are effective in prevention of post-anesthetic shivering and can be substituted with pethedine. In addition to antishivering effect, doxapram has a respiratory stimulant effect that is, that is clinically important in postoperative stage.