Surgical Perspective of Wound Site Infection at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background:

Surgical wound infection is a common postoperative complication and causes significant postoperative morbidity and mortality, prolongs hospital stay, and adds to hospital costs.

Aims and objectives: This study was designed and carried out in the Department of General surgery SKIMS Srinagar in order to find infection rate after clean and clean-contaminated surgery in our hospital, to study the clinical profile of patients with surgical site infections (SSI), to find out the common organisms involved in different wound infections and to study the risk factors for postoperative wound Infections.

Methods: This study was carried out prospectively in the Department of General and Minimal Access Surgery SKIMS, Srinagar from February 2012 to January 2014 on 117 cases that underwent clean and clean-contaminated surgery.

Results: In our study, the frequency of Surgical Site Infection was 13%. The incidence amongst clean surgical cases was 6.5%   and amongst clean-contaminated cases 19.3%.

Conclusion: Despite prophylactic use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and the availability of modern surgical and sterilization techniques, postoperative wound infection still remains a major contributory factor of morbidity in patients who underwent surgical procedures. JMS 2018;21(1):17-23