Utilization of the World Health Organization Safety Checklist Compliance at St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College and AABET Hospital , Addis Ababa Ethiopia, 2021

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Appropriate utilization and compliance of Surgical Safety Checklist reduces occurrence of perioperative surgical complications and improve patient outcomes. However, data on compliance of surgical checklists are scarce in the study area. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate compliance of checklist completion at SPHMMC. Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the compliance of the WHO surgical safety checklist at SPHMMC and AABET, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2021. Methodology: A prospective observational study was conducted among 451 patients who undergone elective and emergency surgery at SPHMMC and AABET hospital from June to July 2013. Compliance and completeness rate with implementation of Sign-in, Time-out, and Signout domains was computed with SPSS Version 23. Results: A total of 451 operations were performed and checklists were utilized in 80.9 % (365/451) of operations. Among these, most checklists were employed at St. Paul Hospital (51.5 %), in patient who undergone elective surgery (67.1 %), the overall compliance and completeness rate were 80.9 and 9.31 % respectively. The most frequently missed checklist items were items from the sign out and the most frequently filled items were from Time out. Conclusions and recommendations: Checklist was not used in all operations, among those who utilize the checklist in majority of the operations they were incomplete. The present study did not assess outcomes, but it is assumed that poor compliance puts patients at risk. The checklists were used more frequently during emergency patients who were operated in SPMMCH. Supplementary training and attention to actual checklist use would be indicated to ensure that this valuable tool could be used more routinely and improve communication. Conducting regular audit of checklist utilization is also recommended