Background :The present study was conducted to establish the patterns and risk factors of surgical site infections in our institution between 2006 and 2011.

  Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study. The surgical site infection (SSI) was identified based on the presence of ICD-10-CM diagnostic code in hospital discharge records. By using a standardized data collection form predictor variables including patient characteristics, preoperative, intra-operative and postoperative data were obtained.

  Results: Ninety five patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The patients were admitted for various procedures including both elective (62.1%) and emergency (37.9%) operations. Colectomy (13.7%) was the leading procedure followed by umbilical herniation (12.6) and appendix perforation (12.6%). The mean age was 47.13 years with standard deviation of 19.60 years. Twenty percent were addicted to opium. Midline incision above and below the umbilicus (40%) had the highest prevalence of infection. Most patients (46.3%) had clean-contaminated wounds and 30.5% had contaminated one. The quantitative variables which were also measured include duration of surgery, pre-operative and post-operative hospital stay with the mean of 2.9±1.45 hours, 1.02±1.42 and 7.75±6.75 days respectively.The most antibiotics prescribed post-operatively were the combination of ceftriaxone and metronidazole (51.6%).

  Conclusion: The contaminated and clean-contaminated wounds are associated with higher rate of SSIs. Also, there was a converse relation between length of surgical incision and rate of SSIs. In overall, we found type of surgery as the main risk factor in developing the SSIs.