Publications

Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a significant post-operative complication globally,contributing to 38.8% of cases. However, the prevalence and associated factors of SSI atFort Portal Regional Referral Hospital (FRRH) remained unknown, prompting this study. Wecollected socio-demographic, preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative data from 210systematically selected patient files using a pretested checklist questionnaire. Data wasanalyzed with IBM SPSS version 25.0. The mean participant age was 44.5 years ± 13.2, witha majority of 147 (70.0%) being male. The prevalence of SSI was 9.0%, and significantassociations were observed between SSI and age over 51 years (X2=11.009, P=0.011),obesity (X2=12.835, P=0.002), anemia (X2=4.319, P=0.038), and timing of antibioticprophylaxis (X2=6.902, P=0.032). Compared to developed countries, SSI prevalence at thishospital was higher. Age over 51, obesity, anemia, and postoperative antibiotic initiationwere identified as risk factors for SSI. Further nationwide studies are warranted todetermine SSI prevalence in Uganda, and establishing a surveillance system for SSI inhospitals is strongly recommended to reduce infection rates, particularly at FRRH.