Abstract

A STUDY ON TIMING OF SURGICAL PROPHYLAXIS IN TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Ajisha*, Karthikeyan V., Nabeel Abdul Rasheed, Parvathy Rajeev, Akash Simon, Abdul Jaleel

ABSTRACT

Background: Length of hospital stay is important in terms of quality of patient care, but also healthcare costs. It may also simply be due to variations in a surgeon's or institution's practices. Strategies to safely reduce length of stay (LOS) are important as an unnecessarily prolonged hospital course is wasteful of scarce healthcare resources and may be associated with increased patient risk in terms of nosocomial complications. Antimicrobial therapy should be administered within 60 minutes prior to the surgery to ensure adequate drug tissue levels at the time of initial incision. Aim and Objective: To study the use of antibiotics in surgical prophylaxis in an attempt to promote their appropriate use and to evaluate the timing of antibiotic prophylaxis before the surgery. Methodology: A prospective observational study was conducted over a period of 6 months period in a tertiary care teaching hospital. The main outcome measure of the study was the timing of antibiotic prophylaxis before the surgery. Results: our study found that administration of prophylaxis more than one hour prior to surgery was common in emergency conditions of hernia (15.3%) and appendectomy (33.3%). In normal cases antibiotic prophylaxis was given 24hr before surgery. In urology (n=13), dermatological cases (n=1), antibiotic prophylaxis was given 2-4 hours before surgery. In orthopedic cases (n=11), half an hour before surgery, prophylactic antibiotics were given. In cases hemorrhoids, anal fissures and hydrocele (n=7) 24 hours before surgery was given. Conclusion: The prophylaxis given 24hrs before surgeries shows better healing of incised sites. The surgeries with 24hour prior prophylaxis are hernioplasty, appendectomy, hemorrhoids’, fissures and hydrocele.

Keywords: Length of Hospital Stay, Surgical Prophylaxis, Length of Stay.