Surgery Is in Itself a Risk Factor for the Patient

Verónica Aranaz-Ostáriz, María Teresa Gea-Velázquez De Castro, Francisco López-Rodríguez-Arias, Diego San José-Saras, Jorge Vicente-Guijarro, Alberto Pardo-Hernández, Jesús María Aranaz-Andrés and on behalf of the ESHMAD Director Group and External Advisers
Additional contact information
Verónica Aranaz-Ostáriz: Department of General Surgery, Elche Universitary Hospital, C/Almazara 11, 03202 Elche, Spain
María Teresa Gea-Velázquez De Castro: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Sant Joan d’Alacant Hospital, Ctra, N-332, s/n, 03550 Sant Joan d’Alacant, Spain
Francisco López-Rodríguez-Arias: Department of General Surgery, Elche Universitary Hospital, C/Almazara 11, 03202 Elche, Spain
Diego San José-Saras: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, IRYCIS, 28034 Madrid, Spain
Jorge Vicente-Guijarro: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, IRYCIS, 28034 Madrid, Spain
Alberto Pardo-Hernández: General Subdirectorate for Healthcare Quality and Healthcare Cooperation, Ministry of Health of the Community of Madrid, 28013 Madrid, Spain
Jesús María Aranaz-Andrés: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, IRYCIS, 28034 Madrid, Spain
on behalf of the ESHMAD Director Group and External Advisers: Collaborators/Membership of the ESHMAD Director Group and External Advisers is listed in Acknowledgments.

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: (1) Background: Adverse events (AE) affect about 1 in 10 hospitalised patients, and almost half are related to surgical care. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of AE in operated and non-operated patients in surgical departments in order to determine whether surgical treatment is a risk factor for AE. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional design that included 3123 patients of 34 public hospitals in the Community of Madrid determining the prevalence of AEs in operated and non-operated patients in surgical departments. (3) Results: The prevalence of AE in non-operated patients was 8.7% and in those operated was 15.8%. The frequency of AE was higher in emergency surgery (20.6% vs. 12.4%). The 48.3% of AEs led to an increase in hospital stay, and surgery was involved in 92.4% of cases. The most frequent AEs were related to hospital-acquired infection (42.63%), followed by those related to a procedure (37.72%). In the multivariate analysis, being operated on represented 2.3 times the risk of developing an AE. (4) Conclusions: Surgical sites are particularly vulnerable to AE. Surgical intervention alone is a risk factor for AE, and we must continue to work to improve the safety of both patient care and the working environment of surgical professionals.

Keywords: adverse events; surgical intervention; medical errors; clinical safety; quality of care; patient safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/8/4761/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/8/4761/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:8:p:4761-:d:793951

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().