ABSTRACT
Background: Surgical site infections can follow clean orthopaedic operations and can cause serious morbidity; mortality and increased resource utilization. Despite this; there are few studies on risk factors for surgical site infections in the Nigerian orthopaedic literature. We conducted a prospective study to determine the host and environmental risk factors for surgical site infections following clean orthopaedic operations.Materials and Methods: Consecutive patients who satisfied the inclusion criteria and were to undergo clean orthopaedic operations performed at the National Orthopaedic Hospital; Igbobi; Lagos from January 2007 to July 2008 were included. Patient's biodata; duration of preoperative hospitalization and other risk factors were analyzed. The risk factors for surgical site infection were determined with Chi square test.Results: The overall rate of surgical site infection during the 18 months of the study was 9.9 (12 of 121). Independent risk factors for this were: Prolonged duration of preoperative hospital stay greater than 13 days (21 infection rate); increasing age greater than 60 years (31 infection rate); and use of implants and drains (only one un-drained wound was infected).Conclusion and Recommendations: Patient's age; duration of preoperative hospitalization; type of surgery (implant or non-implant); and use of drains were the most significant risk factors affecting surgical site infection. It is recommended that preoperative hospital stay should be as short as possible and extra care/precautions taken when working on the elderly; using implants or requiring drainage