RP-Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

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Browsing RP-Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology by Author "Aiken, A. M."

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    Evaluation of surveillance for surgical site infections in Thika Hospital, Kenya.
    (2013-02) Wanyoro, A. K.; Aiken, A. M.; Mwangi, J.; Mulingwa, P.; Wanjohi, J.; Njoroge, J.; Juma, F.; Mugoya, I K; Scott, J. A. G.; Hall, A. J.
    BACKGROUND: In low-income countries, surgical site infections (SSIs) are a very frequent form of hospital-acquired infection. Surveillance is an important method for controlling SSI but it is unclear how this can best be performed in low-income settings. AIM: To examine the epidemiological characteristics of various components of an SSI surveillance programme in a single Kenyan hospital. METHODS: The study assessed the inter-observer consistency of the surgical wound class (SWC) and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) scores using the kappa statistic. Post-discharge telephone calls were evaluated against an outpatient clinician review 'gold standard'. The predictive value of components of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - National Healthcare Safety Network (CDC-NHNS) risk index was examined in patients having major obstetric or gynaecological surgery (O&G) between August 2010 and February 2011. FINDINGS: After appropriate training, surgeons and anaesthetists were found to be consistent in their use of the SWC and ASA scores respectively. Telephone calls were found to have a sensitivity of 70% [95% confidence interval (CI): 47-87] and a specificity of 100% (95% CI: 95-100) for detection of post-discharge SSI in this setting. In 954 patients undergoing major O&G operations, the SWC score was the only parameter in the CDC-NHNS risk index model associated with the risk of SSI (odds ratio: 4.00; 95% CI: 1.21-13.2; P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Surveillance for SSI can be conducted in a low-income hospital setting, although dedicated staff, intensive training and local modifications to surveillance methods are necessary. Surveillance for post-discharge SSI using telephone calls is imperfect but provides a practical alternative to clinic-based diagnosis. The SWC score was the only predictor of SSI risk in O&G surgery in this context.
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    Interventional studies for preventing surgical site infections in sub-Saharan Africa - A systematic review.
    (International journal of surgery, 2012) Aiken, A. M.; Karuri, David M.; Wanyoro, Anthony K.; Macleod, Jana
    There is a great need for safe surgical services in sub-Saharan Africa, but a major difficulty of performing surgery in this region is the high risk of post-operative surgical site infection (SSI). We aimed to systematically review which interventions had been tested in sub-Saharan Africa to reduce the risk of SSI and to synthesize their findings. We searched Medline, Embase and Global Health databases for studies published between 1995 and 2010 without language restrictions and extracted data from full-text articles. We identified 24 relevant articles originating from nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The methodological quality of these publications was diverse, with inconsistency in definitions used for SSI, period and method of post-operative follow-up and classification of wound contamination. Although it was difficult to synthesise information between studies, there was consistent evidence that use of single-dose pre-operative antibiotic prophylaxis could reduce, sometimes dramatically, the risk of SSI. Several studies indicated that alcohol-based handrubs could provide a low-cost alternative to traditional surgical hand-washing methods. Other studies investigated the use of drains and variants of surgical technique. There were no African studies found relating to several other promising SSI prevention strategies, including use of checklists and SSI surveillance. There is extremely limited research from sub-Saharan Africa on interventions to curb the occurrence of SSI. Although some of the existing studies are weak, several high-quality studies have been published in recent years. Standard methodological approaches to this subject are needed.