Prevalence of surgical site infection and antibiotic susceptibility pattern among post-operative patients at a tertiary hospital in Lafia Nasarawa state, Nigeria

Background: Surgical site infection is a common challenge to both the surgical patients and the surgical specialists and may lead to morbidity and mortality. The aetiologic agents vary from one place to the other, ditto the antibiotic sensitivity pattern. This study determined the prevalence of surgical site infection, the aetiologic agents and the antibiotic susceptibility pattern in a tertiary health facility in Lafia. Methods: The study was carried out over 5 (2015 – 2019) year period on post operative patients at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH) in the surgical and obstetrics and gynaecological wards. Swab taken from infected wounds were cultured using 2 plates of blood agar, MacConkey agar and Mannitol salt agar. The antibiotic susceptibility testing was done using Kirby Bauer technique. The data was analysed using SPSS version 23. Results obtained were presented in tables. Significant p value is < 0.05. Results: The mean age of the respondents is 28.6 ± 11.2 years. Of the 408 surgical patients seen within the 5 year period, 15 (3.7%) had surgical sites infection given a prevalence of 3.7%. A total of 6.6% of the patients who had undergone surgeries were immune-compromised. Escherichia coli and Klebsiella species were the two cultured organisms accounting for 75% and 25% respectively. Antibiotic susceptibility revealed that all (100%) were sensitive to the quinolone (ciprofloxacin). Conclusion: Surgical site infection is most common in the third decade of life with a mean age of 28.6 ± 11.2 years. There is a low prevalence of surgical site infection from this study. Eschericia coli and Klebsiella species were the two common organism isolated with both having a good sensitivity to ciprofloxacin