Risk factors related to surgical site infection in elective surgery

Background: Risk factors for surgical site infections (SSI) should be measured and monitored from admission to 30 days after the surgical procedure; 30% of SSI are detected after patient discharge. We undertook this study to calculate the relative risk (RR) of associated factors for SSI in adults undergoing elective surgery. Methods: Patients were classified according to the degree of contamination of the surgery. Patients with clean surgery were defined as not being exposed and patients with clean-contaminated or contaminated surgery were defined as exposed. Risk factors for infection were classified as inherent to the patient, pre-, intra- and postoperative. For statistical analysis, we used Student t or Mann-Whitney U test, chi(2) for RR and multivariate analysis using Cox proportional hazards. Results: Of 403 patients who were monitored up to 30 days after surgery (59.8% females), 35 (8.7%) developed SSI. Factors associated in multivariate analysis were smoking (RR 3.21), underweight (3.4), inappropriate hand washing techniques (4.61), transfusion during the procedure (3.22), contaminated surgery (60), and intensive care stay 8-14 days (11.64), stay of 1-3 days (2.4) and catheter use 1-3 days (2.27). Conclusion: To avoid all risk factors is almost impossible; therefore, close monitoring of patients undergoing elective surgery can prevent infectious complications.