Current Surgical Practices and Surgical Site Infection at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Mekelle, Ethiopia

Overview

This study evaluates the current surgical practices at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in comparison to the World Health Organization's Surgical Unit Based Safety Programme guidelines and aims to determine how deviations from those guidelines are associated with varying rates of surgical site infection incidence in this population. The results of this study will help elucidate risk factors for surgical site infection and prioritize future interventions to decrease the rate of surgical site infection at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, as well as other low and middle-income hospitals. The data collected regarding surgical site infection rates will also prove beneficial in measuring outcomes of any interventions that are developed as a result of this study.

Surgical site infection continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality around the world with low and middle-income countries disproportionately affected with rates as high as 30-40% compared to an average rate of less than 3% in high income countries. In addition to the grave clinical implications of these infections, the additional costs incurred by both patients and treating institutions can be catastrophic. The World Health Organization's "Clean Care is Safer Care" initiated quality improvement projects in five African hospitals between 2013 and 2015, demonstrating that low-cost interventions can decrease the rates of surgical site infection in low and middle-income countries. This successful initiative formed the basis of the World Health Organization's Surgical Unit Based Safety Programme guidelines. This will be a prospective cohort study collecting data about surgical practices, pre- and post-operative care and post-operative infection from time of admission through post-operative day 30. Patients will be identified when they are scheduled for surgery and undergo consent process. If they consent to participate in the study their clinical course will be followed through post-operative day 30. Inpatient observational data will be collected to determine whether current practices are in line with World Health Organization's Surgical Unit Based Safety Programme guidelines. Potential confounding risk factors for infection will be identified, and post-operative information will be collected through inpatient follow up as well as telephone calls on post-operative day ten and 30 to assess for signs or symptoms of surgical site infection.