The importance of the preoperative preparation guide for the prevention of surgical wound infection

Preoperative preparation is an important stage both for the patient who is to undergo a surgical intervention and for the medical staff. The way in which it is performed can influence the evolution of the healing process by avoiding a major complication: the surgical wound infection.

The study, conducted within the Department of General Surgery I of the Clinical Emergency County Hospital Galati, includes patients who underwent abdominal surgical interventions, from whom the batch of those who subsequently developed infections of the surgical wound was selected. For this purpose, the medical documents of the department were consulted, and a questionnaire with inclusion criteria regarding the patient, the surgical wound, as well as the medical care provided was applied at the same time.

76% of the patients with postoperative infections included in the study were emergency admittances in the general surgery department. The preoperative preparation of these patients was influenced by the necessity of immediate surgical intervention (32%), the preexisting pathology, with the predominance of gastric and intestinal pathology (40.35%), the predominant 3 and 4 anesthesia risk evaluation scores of the patients increasing the infection risk.

The appearance of the surgical wound infection is influenced by the preoperative preparation of the patient, thus being imperative the adoption of standardized protocols applicable both in the elective and the emergency surgery, while guaranteeing a fair management of the surgical patient.