https://doi.org/10.4081/monaldi.2023.2604
The impact of COVID-19 prevention measures on surgical wound infection rates post-cardiac surgery
Accepted: June 10, 2023
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on medical services. Several measures have been implemented to reduce the risk of viral transmission. In this paper, we assessed the impact of these measures on surgical wound infection rates in post-cardiac surgery patients. Hypothesis testing was used to compare post-cardiac operation infection rates between the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic being declared and the first 13 months of the pandemic. The infection rates in 969 patients with operations between 01/03/2019 and 29/02/2020 were compared to those of 925 patients with cardiac surgery between 01/03/2020 and 31/03/2021. Infection rates for various operative urgencies and infection types were analyzed. To compare infection rates, a two-tailed pooled z-test using the difference in infection proportions was performed. A 5% significance level was used, and only categories with at least 10 patients in both the pre-COVID and COVID populations were tested. For leg infections, only operations involving coronary artery bypass grafting were included. To ensure that any differences in outcomes were not due to differences in patient demographics resulting in unequal operative risks, Euroscore II values, a measure of cardiac operative risk, were compared between the pre-COVID and post-COVID cohorts. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to determine whether the distributions of Euroscore II values were likely to be drawn from the same population. A significance level of 5% was used. A total of 1901 patients (932 during the COVID-19 pandemic) were included in this study. There was a significant reduction in post-operative infections for all patients undergoing cardiac surgery, from 4.3% of patients before COVID-19 to 1.5% during the pandemic. During the pandemic, fewer elective and more urgent operations were performed. This study suggests a significant role for iatrogenic causes in wound infections before the pandemic. The implementation of COVID-19 prevention measures by healthcare providers can reduce surgical infection rates. As COVID-19-related restrictions have been eased, we suggest maintaining them for healthcare providers to reduce the incidence of surgical wound infections.
Ethics Approval
The study protocol was approved by the Audit, Assurance & Effectiveness Team of the University Hospitals of Plymouth (protocol no. CA_2021-22-120 dated 17/09/2021).How to Cite
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
Similar Articles
- F. Guarracino, M. Stefani, P. Maremmani, M. Corini, S. Pini, C. Tascini, F. Menichetti, N. Ambrosino, Influenza A triggered status asthmaticus requiring emergency ECMO , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 73 No. 4 (2010): Pulmonary series
- Rachel C. Jones, Nidhi Bhatt, Andrew R.L. Medford, The effect of 19-gauge endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration biopsies on characterisation of malignant and benign disease. The Bristol experience , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 88 No. 2 (2018)
- Roberto Carlon, Armando Olivieri, Luca Benacchio, Mario Zanchetta, Short and medium term functional capacity after single cycle of controlled physical training in subjects with claudication , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 70 No. 2 (2008): Cardiac series
- Hassan H. Allam, Abdulhalim J. kinsara, Amtalkhaliq Alrajawi , Tareq Tuaima, Olga Vriz, Transverse sinus mass misinterpreted as the source of cardiac emboli , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 91 No. 1 (2021)
- Kavitha Venkatnarayan, Uma Devaraj, Uma Maheswari Krishnaswamy, Priya Ramachandran, Sreekar Balasundaram, Anuradha Ananthamurthy, Jayanthi Savio, Chronic granulomatous ‘Aspergillus lung mass’ , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 90 No. 3 (2020)
- Iffat Khanum, Fatima Samar, Yousuf Fatimah, Awan Safia, Aziz Adil, Habib Kiren, Nasir Nosheen, Mahmood Faisal, Jamil Bushra, Role of awake prone positioning in patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19: an experience from a developing country , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 91 No. 2 (2021)
- Monia Attia, Houda Gharsalli, Haifa Rmili, Meriem Affes, Soumaya Ben Saad, Sarra Zairi, Ines Baccouche, Saoussen Hantous, Henda Neji, Khaoula Ben Miled-M’rad, Spontaneous hemothorax and neurofibromatosis type 1: How to explain it, how to explore it and how to treat it? , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 89 No. 2 (2019)
- Abhenil Mittal, Aarushi Gupta, Ekta Dhamija, Adarsh Barwad, Sameer Rastogi, Sustained complete response on crizotinib in primary lung inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor - Case report and literature review , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 91 No. 3 (2021)
- Nitesh Gupta, Pranav Ish, Rohit Kumar, Nishanth Dev, Siddharth Raj Yadav, Nipun Malhotra, Sumita Agrawal, Rajni Gaind, Harish Sachdeva, *Other members of the Safdarjung Hospital COVID 2019 working group, Evaluation of the clinical profile, laboratory parameters and outcome of two hundred COVID-19 patients from a tertiary centre in India , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 90 No. 4 (2020)
- Rosaria Carrinola, FiorPaolo Basile, Marta Aliprandi, Stefano Bellone, Fulvia Milena Cribiù, Alessandro Vismara, Pierluigi Aliprandi, Tracheal extramedullary plasmacytoma: a rare cause of chronic cough , Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease: Vol. 90 No. 4 (2020)
<< < 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 > >>
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
