Background: Surgical site infections are commonest nosocomial infections and responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality as well as increased hospitalizations and treatment cost related to surgical operations.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the magnitude and factors associated with surgical site infections at surgical ward of Debre Tabor General Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia.
Method: Institution based cross sectional study was conducted on patients who underwent a surgical procedure at Debre Tabor General Hospital in 2020. The sample size was determined using single population proportion formula. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 21 software. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions analysis were employed. Odds ratio and its 95% confidence interval were taken to test the association between the dependent and independent variables. P-value of less than 0.05 will be considered as statistically significant.
Result: In this study, a total of 191 patients have participated in the study yielding a response rate of 100%. The mean age of the respondents was 2.5 (SD ±0.68) years. The most age group 115(60.2%) resides at the age group greater than 40 years. More than one half(62.3) of the surgical clients were females. Most of the clients were farmers(32.5%) and un able to read and write(41.9) based on the occupation. The magnitude of surgical site infection in this study was found to be 11.5% (95% CI: 7.8%, 15.9%).The factors existance of comorbidity and antibiotic prophylaxis given were found to be significantly assoiated with magnitude of surgical site infection.
Conclusion: The magnitude of surgical site infection in this study was high. Proper management of patients with co-morbidity especially those with diabetes mellitus, proper administration of anesthesia and delivering intravenous antimicrobial prophylaxis before surgery as ordered would significantly reduce the incidence of surgical site infection.