surgical site infection: risk factors analysis

Introduction: surgical site infections (ssis) are the most common hospital-acquired infections (hai). they lead to prolonged stay, long-term disability, antimicrobial resistance, the additional financial burden to the healthcare system, the excessive cost for patients and their families and, unnecessary death. several factors in a patient’s journey during surgery can affect the ssi incidence rate. in this research, we have studied various factors which can influence the ssi rate. this will help in the minimization of the ssi incidence rate. materials and methods: in this prospective observational analytical study, 104 patients posted for surgery were included. the demographic, clinical and relevant laboratory data were documented. ssi was diagnosed by noting down sign and symptoms like local pain, discomfort, type of discharge from the incision site and daily temperature chart. postoperative follow-up was done till 1 month. spss v21 was used for analysis of data and microsoft excel to generate graphs and tables. logistic regression analysis, fisher exact test and chi-square tests were used for statistical analysis. p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. results: in this study, 20 patients developed ssi. socio-economic condition, type of wound, emergency vs. elective, pre-operative and post-operative stay had significant relationship with ssi while gender, age duration of surgery did not have significant effect. among laboratory findings, urea and total leucocyte count have significant effect while haemoglobin and protein does not have. conclusion: risk factors having significant effect on incidence rate of ssi should be addressed before surgical procedure to minimize ssi.