Risk factors for surgical site infection in neurosurgery

Abstract

Objective  To analyze risk factors for surgery site infection in neurosurgery.

Methods  A prospective cross-sectional study conducted in a tertiary hospital analyzing 85 elective and clean neurosurgeries with an outcome of infection within 30 days after surgery.

Results  Surgical site infection occurred in 9.4% (n=8) of cases. Bivariate analysis revealed that the following risk factors were associated with the presence of infection: total length of hospital stay, Body Mass Index, surgical size and blood transfusion. After running binary logistic regression adjustments, only the total length of hospital stay was significantly related to the presence of infection.

Conclusion  The occurrence of surgical site infection in neurosurgery in the studied institution was higher than recommended by the scientific literature. The results show that outpatient follow up of patients who undergo surgery after hospital discharge may reduce the underreporting of infection cases.

Surgical wound infection; Perioperative nursing; Operating room nursing; Risk factors; Neurosurgery