Surgical site infections after craniotomy: a matched health-care cost and length of stay study

Objective: To assess the extra health-care costs and length of stay resulting from surgical site infection (SSI), as well as to identify the most frequent aetiological microorganisms of SSIs among Jordanian craniotomy surgery patients. Method: A retrospective, descriptive, correlational and nested 1:1 matched case-control design was used. A computerised list of patients, who underwent surgery between May 2009 and March 2015, was generated in the targeted hospital. A final bill for every selected patient was also determined. Patients were divided equally into two groups: patients with an SSI and patients without an SSI. Results: A total of 64 patients were recruited. The SSI-group had a significant higher mean health-care cost of $7,899.08 (p=0.001) and a longer stay in hospital (mean additional days: 23.17) than the non-SSI group. Furthermore, Acinetobacter baumannii and Staphylococcus aureus were determined as the most predominant causative agents of SSI, at 39.1% and 26.1% of SSI patients, respectively. Conclusion: The results of this study can be considered as a baseline for national benchmarking to evaluate the quality of care provided to targeted patients. This study should encourage nurse administrators to adopt protocols and strategies that promote infection control measures, as well as to develop new methods of surveillance on universal precautions adherence. This may limit pathogen contamination in the surgical wound, shorten length of stay and decrease health-care costs.