Prevalence and root causes of surgical site infections at an academic trauma and burn center in Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Despite modern surgical techniques and the use of antibiotic prophylaxis, surgical site infection remains a burden for the patient and health system. It is a major cause of morbidity, prolonged hospital stay, and increased health costs. Thus, the main aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and root causes of surgical site infection among patients undergoing major surgery at an academic trauma and burn center in Ethiopia. METHODS: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted on 249 patients during 6-months’ time window. Data entered in SPSS and multivariate logistic regression was employed to determine the root causes and the outcome variable. RESULTS: The prevalence of surgical site infection was found to be 24.6% of whom 10% develop deep site, 9.2% organ spaced and the remaining 5.2% develop superficial space surgical site infection. The prevalence was high in patients who had undergone orthopedics (54.3%) and abdominal (30%) surgeries. Educational status, pre-morbid illness, duration of pre-operative and post-operative hospital stay, ASA score, and type of the wound were significantly associated with SSI at p-value of ≤0.05. However, no association was found with BMI and location of the wound. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of surgical site infection in the study population is still high. Preoperative hospital stay, pre-morbid illness, pre-operative and post-operative hospital stay, ASA score, and type of the wound were the independent predictors of surgical site infection. The duration of pre and post-operative periods should be kept to a minimum as much as possible. Patients with pre-morbid history of chronic diseases and contaminated wound require special attention to decrease the rate of occurrence of infections. In addition, longitudinal studies should be carried out to identify more risk factors.