Publications

Caesarean Section as a mode of delivery is the most commonly done surgical procedure inmaternity departments all over the world. Surgical site infection complicates about one-thirdto two-thirds of caesarean sections in low-income countries which is about 9 times highercompared with the high-resource countries. Surgical Site Infection is associated withincreased maternal morbidity, prolonged hospital stay and increased medical costs. Thedevelopment of post-caesarean surgical site infection is hung on a complex interplay of manyfactors not limited to wound class, immune status, maternal age, hypertensive disorders, ASAclassification, number of vaginal examinations, the virulence of the microorganisms,maternal weight, surgical techniques and premature rupture of membrane. The studyemployed a descriptive cross-sectional and quantitative approach to study the factorsinfluencing the prevalence of surgical site infections among mothers undergoing caesareansection in Iganga Hospital. A sample size of 288 participants were enrolled using a randomsampling technique and close-ended questionnaires were employed to obtain the data fromparticipants. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20 and statistical significance wasset at a P-value less than 0.05 at 95% confidence interval. A total of 288 post-caesareanmothers were studied from October – November 2021 in Iganga Hospital. The majority of theparticipants were married 255(88.8%) and had a secondary level of education 142(49.3%). Themean age of the participants were 25.6 years with 21 as the modal age. The prevalence ofsurgical site infection among post-caesarean mothers at Iganga Hospital was 20.5% (59 outof 288) and the factors which were statistically influencing the SSI included early rupture ofmembranes of more than 18 hours (aOR 23.715 95% C.I 5.976-94.117, P 0000) andpostoperative haemoglobin (aOR 15.109 95% C.I 3.494-65.333, P 0.000) There’s a high burdenof SSI among post-caesarean mothers in Iganga Hospital. Early rupture of membranes morethan 18 hours and post-operative haemoglobin less than 11g/dl are key contributory factors.Aggressive prophylactic and post-operative antibiotic therapy should be considered inmothers with early rupture of membranes and post-operative anaemia