Oscarsson R and Swenne CL
Background: Surgical site infections are commonly occurring within healthcare, especially in Africa. Good hygiene is the most effective way in which to reduce and prevent infection. However, compliance is often low or insufficient.
Objective: To assess intraoperative compliance to basic hygiene in the operating theatre and the staffs’ views on patient safety and to assess whether adherence to hand hygiene is related to patient safety culture in a developing country. Methods: The design was a structured observation in order to gathered information on compliance to basic intraoperative hygiene routines in operating theatres in Mozambique. Theatre staff was also asked to complete a survey on patient safety culture.
Results: The study reveals that none of the work elements were performed in complete compliance to WHO’s guidelines at all times. The theatre staff’s views on patient safety culture showed the highest percentage of positive responses was within “Teamwork Within Hospital Units” and the dimensions with the least positive response was “Nonpunitive Response To Error” and “Staffing”. A medium relation was found between compliance to basic hygiene and the results of the patient safety culture survey.
Conclusion: This study shows that compliance to basic hygiene during the intraoperative phase in theatre was insufficient. There was a medium relation between the views of the staff on patient safety and their compliance to basic hand hygiene. This implies that working with the attitudes of the staff concerning patient safety could be one way of improving hygiene compliance which would be expected to reduce the number of surgical site infections.
