Abstract:

Background: Surgical site infections is potentially a preventable complication. There are many factors contributing to increasing rate of it despite many improvement done in hospital environment. Accurate identification of the risk factors is the key to make better strategies to reduce and prevent, because surgical site infections have been responsible for the increasing cost, morbidity and mortality to surgical interventions and continue to be a common problem in surgical environment.

Objective: To determine the prevalence, predictors of surgical site infections and complications among patients at Bugando medical centre surgical wards.

Methods: This hospital based cross sectional study was conducted for the patients diagnosed with surgical site infection from September 2019 to February 2020 at Bugando medical centre. A standardize questionnaire was used to collect the data from patients. Data analysis was then done using SPSS version 20 and relationship between exposure variable and outcome variables was done obtained using Chi-square test.

Results: The result of patients admitted in all surgical wards from September 2019 to February 2020 shows a prevalence of 164 of SSI, the predictors of SSI commonly encountered were alcohol, hypertension, many number of operations, long duration of surgery and cigarrete smoking. The complications patients experience are prolonged admission period, amputation of limbs (8%), resection of intestine (18%) and increased hospital costs and death.

Conclusion: SSI prevalence has decreased from last study done in 2014 (24%), but q 1.64% is of significance since it results in patients life complications, risk factors encountered are smodifiable, Bugando medical centre surgical wards should emphasize preventive measures to reduce the prevalence of SSI and provide education on modifiable factors to all patients in surgical wards.