Experiencia en el estudio de efectos adversos en un servicio de cirugía general

Objective: To describe adverse events after abdominal wall hernia repair and to analyze the association between these outcomes and certain characteristics of the patient and hospital admission. Material and methods: A cohort of 931 patients who underwent abdominal wall hernia repair was evaluated. Postoperative complications, reoperations and mortality were prospectively studied. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the association of complications with patient characteristics and hospital admission. Results: A total of 16.3% of patients developed postsurgical complications, mainly those related to the surgical wound, which were present in 9.3% (seroma 4%, hematoma 3.7% and infection 1.5%). Organ failure affected 1.1% of patients and intra-abdominal complications were found in less than 0.5%; 0.6% underwent reoperation during admission, 0.3% were admitted to the intensive care unit and four patients (0.4%) died in hospital. Postoperative complications were associated with age groups older than 46 years (46-65 years, odds ratio [OR] = 2.06; 66-79 years, OR = 3.11), male sex (OR = 2.06), urgent admission (OR = 1.85), regional anesthesia (OR = 1.81) and general anesthesia (OR = 1.99). Conclusions: We are introducing an information system that allows adverse outcomes in surgery to be monitored and, in turn, the factors associated with the poorest results to be analyzed. Although most of the risk factors identified were beyond the surgeon’s control, a subgroup of high risk patients should undergo closer surveillance.