Global View of Clinical Guidelines on Prevention of Surgical Site Infections for Health Care Professionals: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Background Even though there may be clinical guidelines for surgical site infections prevention, no review has been conducted on them. Therefore, a scoping review was undertaken to map and synthesize the available surgical site infections prevention guidelines. Methodology A scoping review methodology as defined by the Joanna Briggs institute was conducted. Eligible English and French published articles with guidelines were identified from data bases, search engines, and websites of professional organizations. The Search terms included: "health care professionals AND guidelines for surgical site infections prevention OR clinical practice guidelines". First level selection was based on title and abstract while full text for second level. Results Out of the 106 articles with guidelines, 7 were selected for the period 1999 to 2021. Four showed methods used to formulate guidelines. Five guidelines comprised recommendations for surgical site infections prevention for pre, intra and post-operative phases. WHO guideline appeared to be robust as it contained all the characteristics. Conclusion Of all the guidelines identified, the WHO guideline indicated population used to develop guidelines; method used and set recommendations, validation including all phases of surgical management. Hence, a recommendation to adapt WHO guideline to health care settings of low resources countries like Rwanda.