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Background:

Surgical site infections (SSI) in instrumented spine surgery remains as a major complication with increased morbidity. Although implementation of surgical safety checklists has been reported to lower the rates of SSI, reproducibility of these remain unclear.


Objective:

The specific aim of this study was to explore the results of implementation of a SSI control protocol in regard to its efficacy in decreasing the rate of SSI.


Methods:

A total of 140 instrumented spinal surgery cases between 2018 and 2021 were divided into two groups as Group 1 (checklist implemented) and Group 2 (control) and these were compared regarding SSI rates, patient rand surgery related factors, laboratory findings and infecting microorganisms.


Results:

Ten SSIs were encountered in Group 1 (20.8%), whereas only nine in Group 2 (9.8%). Although not statistically significant (p > .05), these results highly favor the non-checklist implemented group regarding the development of SSI. A definitive infective microorganism could be identified in five out of 10 SSI in Group 1 and 6 out of nine in Group 2. Whereas only three out of 11 (27.3%) involved Gr (+) agents, rest of eight out of 11 (72.7%) involved Gr (-) agents.


Discussion:

A failure in decreasing the SSI rate through the implementation of a SSI prevention checklist may be due to several factors pertaining to the study design, patient characteristics and the Gr (-) dominance in SSIs in our center. Nevertheless, this suggests that checklist implementation to prevent SSI in instrumented spine surgery may not be effective in all contexts.


Keywords:

Spinal surgery; checklist; prevention; surgical site infection.

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Implementing an infection control checklist May not be effective in reducing the incidence of surgical site infections in spinal surgery

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