Abstract

Dr. Badar Iqbal*, Dr. Niaz Ahmad and Dr. Muhammad Waseem

ABSTRACT

Aim of study: To evaluate post-operative complications during hospital stay of patients in a general surgical ward at a tertiary care teaching hospital of Punjab. Methodology: It is a cross-sectional observational study conducted at a tertiary care center. Duration of the study was 3 months from April 2018 to June 2018. All the patients who underwent surgery due to any reason were included in the study after taking informed consent. Detailed history, examination, treatment and post-operative observed complications were noted on preformed proforma. All the data was analyzed using SPSS version 18.0. Results: Total 342 patients underwent surgical procedures which included 150(43.8%) elective and 192(56.2%) emergency procedures. Most common surgical procedure done was exploratory laparotomies 65(19%). Appendectomy was performed in 56 (16%), hernia repair in 34(9.9%), cholecystectomy including open and laparoscopic in 38 (11.1%), thyroidectomy in 25 (7.3%) and ano-rectal surgery including peri-anal fistula, hemorrhoids and sinuses in 40 (11.6%) of the patients. Complications were found in 198 (57.8%) of the patients. Most of the complications occurred after emergency surgeries in 130 (65.6%) patients as compared to 68 (34.3%) patients in elective procedures. Most common was postoperative pyrexia in 130 (38%) patients followed by postoperative nausea and vomiting in 98 (28.6%), prolonged paralytic ileus 42 (12.2%), intra-abdominal bleeding 33(9.6%) wound infection in 50 (14.6%), respiratory tract infection in 18 (5.2%) and thromboembolism phenomenon was observed in 3 patients. Two patients developed fecal fistula while 3 patients developed wound dehiscence. 8 patients died postoperatively in the hospital during the study period. Conclusion: We found that the most common postoperative complication was fever followed by post-operative nausea/vomiting, spinal headache, wound infection and respiratory tract infection. Post-operative complications are more common in emergency surgery than elective. It is important that the resident staff should be aware of these complications and how to manage them.