Effect of Demographic, Host and Preoperative Factors in Development of Surgical Site Infections: A Prospective Study at A Tertiary Care Hospital of Western Rajasthan

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) have always been a nuisance among inpatients; with surgical site infections (SSI) being a major contributor to it. Multiple factors are said to increase the likelihood of surgical site infections. The present study was carried out to assess occurrence of SSI and; effect of various demographic, preoperative and host factors on frequency of SSI among patients operated in General Surgery department. A total of 609 patients were enrolled and were questioned using a pre-structured questionnaire. Samples were collected from patients clinically suspected to have wound infection within 30 days of surgery, and sent for further processing. Among all clinically suspected patients 88 were confirmed to have SSI. Defining the SSI occurrence rate and assessment of factors that predispose to SSI will help to refresh the magnitude of problem in the given set- up and accordingly introduce modifications in SSI surveillance.