SynthesisInternational journal of surgery (London, England)2012
Interventional studies for preventing surgical site infections in sub-Saharan Africa - A systematic review.
Synthesis in International journal of surgery (London, England), 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03761459 (Current Surgical Practices and Surgical Site Infection at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Mekelle, Ethiopia), which is not on this map. Cited by 33 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Current Surgical Practices and Surgical Site Infection at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Mekelle, Ethiopia
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effect of interventions on surgical site infections in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review.BMC surgery · 2025Pooled it
- Adult groin hernia surgery in sub-Saharan Africa: a 20-year systematic review and meta-analysis.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- [Incidence of surgical site infections in sub-Saharan Africa: systematic review and meta-analysis].The Pan African medical journal · 2016Pooled it
- Effect of placebo versus prophylactic postoperative amoxicillin on post-(adeno) tonsillectomy morbidity in Tanzanian children: a two-centre, double-blind randomized controlled non-inferiority trial.The Pan African medical journal · 2022Trial
- Incidence and Risk Factors for Surgical Site Infections in Pediatric Abdominal Surgery: A Multicenter Cohort Study.Journal of pharmacy & bioallied sciences · 2025Article
- Global Scaling of a Surgical Infection Prevention Program to 5 Low-Resource Countries.JAMA surgery · 2025Article
- Surgical site infections in sub-Saharan Africa: epidemiology, risk factors, and prevention strategies.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2025Review
- Avoidable severe morbidity from wound dehiscence after cesarean section: Practice and experience from a tertiary referral hospital in a low-income setting, Tanzania-a mixed-methods study.Frontiers in surgery · 2025Article
- Factors in postoperative length of hospital stay among surgical patients in a rural Ethiopian hospital: an observational study.The Pan African medical journal · 2024Observational
- Article
- Article
- Surgical site infection after gastrointestinal surgery in children: an international, multicentre, prospective cohort study.BMJ global health · 2020Article
- Antimicrobial resistance in hospitalized surgical patients: a silently emerging public health concern in Benin.Annals of clinical microbiology and antimicrobials · 2020Article
- Implementation of surgical site infection surveillance in low- and middle-income countries: A position statement for the International Society for Infectious Diseases.International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases · 2020Article
- Supporting global antimicrobial stewardship: antibiotic prophylaxis for the prevention of surgical site infection in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): a scoping review and meta-analysis.JAC-antimicrobial resistance · 2020Article
- Value and Feasibility of Telephone Follow-Up in Ethiopian Surgical Patients.Surgical infections · 2020Article
- Risk factors for surgical site infections in abdominal surgeries in Ghana: emphasis on the impact of operating rooms door openings.Epidemiology and infection · 2020Article
- Article
- Evaluation of antimicrobial prophylaxis use and rate of surgical site infection in surgical ward of Wachemo University Nigist Eleni Mohammed Memorial Hospital, Southern Ethiopia: prospective cohort study.BMC infectious diseases · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThere is a great need for safe surgical services in sub-Saharan Africa, but a major difficulty of performing surgery in this region is the high risk of post-operative surgical site infection (SSI).
methodsWe aimed to systematically review which interventions had been tested in sub-Saharan Africa to reduce the risk of SSI and to synthesize their findings. We searched Medline, Embase and Global Health databases for studies published between 1995 and 2010 without language restrictions and extracted data from full-text articles.
findingsWe identified 24 relevant articles originating from nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The methodological quality of these publications was diverse, with inconsistency in definitions used for SSI, period and method of post-operative follow-up and classification of wound contamination. Although it was difficult to synthesise information between studies, there was consistent evidence that use of single-dose pre-operative antibiotic prophylaxis could reduce, sometimes dramatically, the risk of SSI. Several studies indicated that alcohol-based handrubs could provide a low-cost alternative to traditional surgical hand-washing methods. Other studies investigated the use of drains and variants of surgical technique. There were no African studies found relating to several other promising SSI prevention strategies, including use of checklists and SSI surveillance.
conclusionsThere is extremely limited research from sub-Saharan Africa on interventions to curb the occurrence of SSI. Although some of the existing studies are weak, several high-quality studies have been published in recent years. Standard methodological approaches to this subject are needed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.