Abstract:
Background: The emergence of significant antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria is a major public health problem making surgical site infection management difficult. This problem is worse in developing countries like Ethiopia where rational use of antibiotics is greatly reduced. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess bacterial profile, antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of isolates and associated factors among patients with post-operative surgical site infection in the study area. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Ambo University Referral Hospital and Ambo General Hospital from Feb 2024 to June 2024. A total of 160 patients with post-operative surgical site infections were included conveniently. Data were collected by using structured questionnaire. Isolation and identification of bacteria from collected pus swabs were performed based on standard bacteriological technique. Antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the isolates was carried out by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Data were entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 26 software and p-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Result: The prevalence of bacterial isolated was 76.2% (122/160). Among 177 bacteria detected, Staphylococcus aureus 44(24.9%) was the most frequent isolates followed by Coagulase negative Staphylococci (CoNS) 42(23.7%), E.coli 28(15.8%), P. aerugenosa 21(11.9%), Klebsiella species 17(9.6%), Enterobacter species 13(7.3%), Proteus species 8(4.5%) and Acinetobacter species (2.3%). S.aureus and CoNS showed highest resistance to Penicillin. E.coli showed highest resistance to tetracycline (75.0%). Multidrug resistance (MDR) was identified in (84.7%) of the isolates. Presence of comorbidity [P=0.042, AOR: 4.909; 95%CI (1.056, 22.816)], preoperative hospital stay [P=0.009, AOR: 5.076; 95%CI (1.489, 17.303))] and post-operative hospital stay [P=0.005 AOR: 5.229; 95%CI (1.651, 16.562)] were factors significantly associated with surgical site culture positivity for bacteria. Additionally, administration of ceftriaxone antibiotic prophylaxis [P=0.021, AOR: 0.20; 95%CI (0.051, 0.786)] was significantly associated with a reduced risk of developing SSIs.
Conclusion: The prevalence of culture positivity for bacteria and MDR were high. Therefore, regular monitoring of antimicrobial resistance pattern should be practiced to decrease developing and spreading multidrug resistant bacterial infections
