Surgical site infection and predictors among adults in specialized hospital: prospective observational study

Abstract

Introduction: Health-care-associated infection (HAI) is a major global safety issue for patients, health care managers and health-care professionals. One of HAI is surgical site infection (SSI). SSI is refers to an infection that occurs after surgery in the part of the body where surgery took place. It arises following surgery and is specifically related to the surgical site. It is estimated that SSIs account between 10-30% of all HAIs. Objective: The objectives of this study was to quantify the rate of wound infection and identify determinant factors Method: Prospective observational study was conducted from January to June 05/2019. All adult patients who met inclusion criteria were included in the study. The data was obtained either directly from the patient, or by observations or from the patient’s file. All patients were followed daily before, during and after operation for 30 days starting from the date of operation. Wound infection was detected at bedside and post-discharge surveillance. Chi-square test was computed to evaluate adequacy of cells for regression analysis. Independent predictors identified using binary logistic regression analysis and statistical significance was considered at p<0.05. Results: Two hundred eighty patients were included with mean age of 42.5±11 and 157(56.1%) patients were females. Caesarean section is the most common type of surgery. The rate of wound infection was found to be 80 (28.57%). The highest SSI rate was observed in gastrointestinal surgery 28(35.0). More than half of the cases were developed in health institution and patients having clean contaminated wound share the highest number. Majority of patients were undergoing emergency surgery with mean duration of surgery 1.8±0.65 hours. Multivariate analysis revealed that seven variables were significantly associated with the prevalence of wound infection; namely patient’s body mass index (P=0.037), age (P=0.046), history of previous surgery (P=0.04), preoperative hospital stay (p=0.0091), wound class (p=0.01) and history of steroid use (p= 0.027). Conclusion: In this study the rate of wound infection was high with patient’s physical status, duration of surgery, previous steroid use being strong predictor of infection. Life style modification is important to reduce body mass index and health professionals should counsel them.