Surgical Site Infection following Emergency Caesarean Section – incidence and associated risk factors

Aim: The aims of this study were to 1) quantify the incidence of Surgical Site Infection (SSI) in
patients who have had an emergency Caesarean Section (CS); 2) identify the risk factors and
associated factors that play a major role in the development of those SSI’s.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study with data collected from Mid Yorkshire Trust
Pinderfields General Hospital, Wakefield. The study sample consisted of 206 patients (101 SSI
patients and 105 non-SSI patients) who had emergency CSs carried out between January and
December 2017. Simple logistic regression and multiple logistic regression were then carried
out to determine any significant risk factors.

Results: From the period between January and December 2017 there were 105 SSIs for
patients who had undergone an emergency CS. Patient BMI (kg/m2) was a statistically
significant predictor at the 5% significance level for SSI occurrence (p<0.001). The odds ratio
of 1.17 indicated that a unit change in BMI was associated with raised odds of SSI of 17%. Other
risk factors including: patient age had a P value of 0.102 and O.R. 1.05, Recoded diabetes status
had a P value of 0.142 and O.R. 2.10 and Pre-operative vaginal swab taken had a P value of
0.114 and O.R. 0.594 making them all non-significant risk factors.

Conclusion: This study was carried in order to help add knowledge to an area currently lacking
it, as at the time of writing there are no studies that have investigated SSI and its associated
risk factors for emergency CS. Advances in this area of study would allow for the improving of
guidelines and thus patient care, giving medical professionals the information they need to
reduce SSI’s in patients and therefore reduce patient suffering. This study identified BMI
(kg/m2) as the only significant risk factor for the development of an SSI in emergency CS.
Further research will be needed to be conducted however, to strengthen this study’s findings
and improve upon the lack of knowledge for emergency CS and its associated risk factors.