Surgical site Infection among postoperative patients of tertiary care centre in Central India - A prospective study

Surgical site infection is a one of the most common postoperative complication and causes significant postoperative morbidity and mortality. WHO described Hospital acquired infections as one of the major infectious diseases having huge economic impact. There are many factors that affect the susceptibility of any wound to infection. This study was aimed to determine the incidence of surgical site infections (SSI) and to study other factors that can affect the infection rate. This is a 2 year prospective study carried on 300 patients operated in Surgery department. The various parameters studied were age of patient, presence of Diabetes, anemia, preoperative hospital stay, details of timing of antimicrobial prophylaxis, surgical wound infection, type of surgery (emergency and elective surgery), duration of surgery, the wound classes, etc. Surgical site infection was found to be 14.33% with higher infection rate in males and patients above 50 years of age. Staphylococcus aureus (37.83%) is most commonly identified organism in culture. As the preoperative stay increases, chances of SSI increases. SSI rate is more with emergency surgery than elective surgery. Obesity, Diabetes and Anemia are additional risk factors in surgical site infection.