Investigation on implementation of surgical site marking in a general hospital in Xuzhou

Objective To investigate implementation of surgical site marking in a certain general hospital in Xuzhou, and to explore factors affecting accuracy of surgical site marking. Methods 110 medical workers were surveyed by self-made "Questionnaire of awareness of surgical site marking of medical workers" and "Evaluation form of implementation of surgical site marking" . Evaluation was also conducted to 1 762 surgical patients with 2 428 cases of marking. Results Among the 2 428 surgical sites, marking rate was 70.55%, with rate of accurate marking 81.10% and a total score of (14.64±1.50) points; 677 cases were without markings, accounting for 27.88%; 188 cases (7.42%) were with errors of integrity, 75 cases (3.09%) with errors of effectiveness, 32 cases (1.32%) with errors of accuracy, and 36 cases (1.48%) with errors of implementation; 84.54% of the medical workers believed surgical markings were helpful to surgery safety, 51.82% found surgical makings could not meet the needs of clinical surgery, and 88.18% thought it necessary to improve surgical marking system; evaluations by medical workers of different ages, working years and professional titles were statistically significant (t/F=3.260, 16.348, 2.951; P<0.05). Conclusions Due to lack of a unified standard marking system, low implementation rate and effectiveness of the standard, implementation of surgical site marking still needs to be improved. Key words: Hospital, general; Surgical marking; Surgery safety; Investigation