Nurses' practice in preventing postoperative wound infections: an observational study.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Infection Control
• Surgical Care

Background:

• Surgical site infections (SSIs) are significant postoperative complications.
• Previous research on wound care practices relied on surveys and chart audits.
• Limited studies have used direct observation to assess nurses' wound management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To prospectively observe and describe surgical nurses' postoperative wound care practices.
• To evaluate the alignment of observed practices with evidence-based guideline recommendations.
• To identify discrepancies in surgical wound management.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional prospective study design was employed.
• Sixty nurses from four surgical units were observed using a developed audit tool.
• Inter-rater reliability was assessed for the observational tool.

Main Results:

• Post-procedure hand hygiene was less frequent (81.7%) than pre-procedure (95%).
• Significant deviations in clean (38.1%) and sterile (22%) glove use were noted.
• Over half of nurses (61.7%) did not provide post-discharge wound education; only 23.3% of events were fully documented.

Conclusions:

• A notable gap exists between recommended and observed surgical wound care practices.
• Areas for improvement include aseptic technique, patient education, and documentation.
• Strategies are needed to integrate evidence-based recommendations into clinical practice to reduce SSIs.