International Surgery Journal | November 2019 | Vol 6 | Issue 11 Page 1 International Surgery Journal Jain A et al. Int Surg J. 2019 Nov;6(11):xxx-xxx http://www.ijsurgery.com pISSN 2349-3305 | eISSN 2349-2902 Original Research Article A study of surgical site infections in a tertiary care hospital Ayush Jain 1 *, Anuradha Tolpadi 1 , Bhupendra Chaudhary 2 , Ansh Chaudhary 1 , Ankita Misra 1 INTRODUCTION Health care-associated infections (HAIs) remain as an important public health concern. A surgical site infection is an infection that occurs after surgery in the part of the body where the surgery took place. Surgical site infections can sometimes be superficial infections involving the skin only. Other surgical site infections are more serious and can involve tissues under the skin, organs or implanted material. World Health Organization (WHO) describes hospital acquired infections to be one of the major infectious diseases having a huge economic impact worldwide. These infections affect about 2 million people annually resulting in 5-15% of them requiring hospitalization. 1 Surgical site infections (SSIs) are known to be one of the most common causes of nosocomial infections worldwide. 2 A SSI contributes to substantial rate of mortality, significant morbidity, considerable prolongation in length ABSTRACT Background: Health care-associated infections remain as an important public health concern. Surgical site infections (SSIs) are known to be one of the most common causes of nosocomial infections worldwide. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted across 12 months (May 2018-April 2019) in a tertiary care hospital. The present study includes 223 patients who were undergoing clean and clean contaminated surgery in the hospital. Contaminated and dirty surgeries were excluded. The demographic data of the patient, diagnostic criteria used, associated risk factors, use of prophylactic antimicrobial agents, the type and duration of surgery, clinical evaluation of wound and laboratory data was collected. All the pus samples or wound swabs of clinically suspects of SSI cases received in the Department of Microbiology were inoculated and interpreted according to Centre for Disease Control and Infection guidelines. Results: The study included 223 patients who underwent surgery in the hospital. Amongst them 9 (4%) developed SSI. The incidence of SSI was 4.03%. There was a direct relationship observed between the occurrence of SSI and certain co-morbid conditions such as diabetes. It was also observed that prolonged surgeries above two hours and females were more predisposed to develop a surgical site infection. Conclusions: SSIs being one of the most common causes of nosocomial infections. It was also the most important factor responsible for significant morbidity, mortality, unwanted prolonged hospitalization and additional cost of treatment in surgical patients which can be reduced by strictly following the guidelines of infection control along with judicious and rational use of antibiotics. Keywords: Antibiotic susceptibility, Diabetes, Infection, Microbiology, Surgery, Wound 1 Department of Microbiology, Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College and Research Centre, Pune, Maharashtra, India 2 Department of Medicine, Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India Received: 18 September 2019 Revised: 03 October 2019 Accepted: 04 October 2019 *Correspondence: Dr. Ayush Jain, E-mail: drbchaudhary1968@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2349-2902.isj20194577