Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Adherence to Surgical Site Infection Guidelines in Cardiac Surgery in a Tertiary Hospital in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Eman Abu Gharbieh¹ , Sahar Fahmy²

¹Dubai Pharmacy College, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; ²Helwan University, Helwan, Egypt.

For correspondence:- Eman Gharbieh Email: emanfa@yahoo.com

Received: 4 December 2011 Accepted: 18 June 2012 Published: 16 August 2012

Citation: Gharbieh EA, Fahmy S. Adherence to Surgical Site Infection Guidelines in Cardiac Surgery in a Tertiary Hospital in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Trop J Pharm Res 2012; 11(4):657-664 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v11i4.18

© 2012 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the appropriateness and compliance of antibiotic prophylaxis practices in cardiac surgery in a tertiary hospital in United Arab Emirates (UAE) using three international guidelines.

Methods: A retrospective study was performed by reviewing patients’ files admitted for cardiac surgery between January 2008 and February 2010. The study evaluated the adherence of health care professionals to three international guidelines with regard to antibiotic prophylaxis. The guidelines were National Surgical Infection Prevention Project (NSIPP), Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA). Patients’ records were reviewed for antibiotics used for prophylaxis, frequency of administration, timing and number of doses.

Results: A total of 92 patients were included in the study. Based on the international guidelines, only 89.1 and 79.3% of the patients received the recommended pre- and post-operative antibiotics, respectively. On the other hand, 93.5% of the patients received the right antibiotic dose while the total duration of all antimicrobial agents used for prophylaxis was concordant with the guidelines (48 h) in only 67.4% of the patients.

Conclusion: Adherence to international antimicrobial prophylaxis guidelines for cardiac surgery was found to be suboptimal in the study hospital in Dubai. Various interventions are needed via developing local evidence-based protocols in collaboration with surgeons, and also to strengthen regulations for ensuring adherence to these guidelines.

Keywords: Antimicrobial prophylaxis, International guidelines, Cardiac surgery