Comparison of Early Versus Delayed Showering on Post-Operative Wound Infections

Objectives: To compare frequency of SSIs with and without early showering after clean and clean contaminated surgicalwounds.Study Design and Setting: Randomized controlled trial was conducted at Department of Surgery. HIT Hospital, Taxilafrom June 2020 to December 2020.Methodology: A total of 130 participants were recruited after taking informed consent. After clean and clean-contaminatedsurgery, first group was subjected to early showering (48 hours after surgery) while second group was not allowed showeringuntil removal of stiches. Both groups were compared in terms of SSIs. Data was entered into SPSS version 25. The meanand standard deviation were used for the expression of continuous variables while frequency and proportion were usedfor qualitative variables. Both groups were compared by independent sample t test and chi square test. A p value of <0.05was considered statistically significant.Results: The mean age of the patients was 39.92 ± 11.42 years and there was male gender dominancy i.e. 74 (56.9%) weremales while 56 (43.1%) were females. Clean surgeries were 81 (62.3%) and clean-contaminated proportion was 49 (37.7%).Collectively, 12 (9.2%) patients developed SSIs during clinical followup. There was no difference between groups in termsof age, gender, and wound types (p values 0.680, 0.157 and 0.587 respectively). In shower group, 3 (4.6%) and in nonshowergroup, 9 (13.8%) patients developed SSIs (p value 0.069).Conclusion: Early postoperative showering can be implemented safely in clean and clean contaminated surgical woundsto minimize SSIs. The results should be evaluated in large RCTs.