Compliance with Surgical Safety Check-list in the Operating Theatre of Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, Kano, Nigeria

Abstract

Surgical procedures are among the basic health care services given in the healthcare system in both low and middle income settings. Compliance  with surgical safety checklist has been documented to reduce the occurrence of peri-operative surgical complications and improve patient  outcomes. The study aimed at evaluating the compliance rate with Surgical Safety Checklist developed by the World Health Organisation in an  operating room in Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, Kano. The study employed a prospective observational study and was conducted among  150 patients that underwent abdominal surgery. Compliance and completeness rate with implementation of sign-in, time-out, and sign-out sections  were computed using SPSS version 20. A total of 150 abdominal surgeries were performed and the overall compliance rate was 54.8%. The  sign-in, time-out and sign-out compliance rates were 61.5%, 54.0% and 49.1% respectively. The overall compliance rate was inadequate. However,  the completeness rate was satisfactory except for some elements of the checklist that were not performed at an equal frequency in all aspects of  the items. Thus, there is need for regular auditing of checklist utilisation in non-tertiary hospital operating rooms.