Opinions of operating room and surgical ward staff toward surgical safety checklist

Aim: This research is aimed at evaluating operating room and surgical ward staff’s opinions regarding the WHO surgical safety checklist. Materials and Methods: The questionnaire includes questions about gender, age, job role, and years of experience. Every item on the checklist was evaluated, and responders were permitted to provide freehand comments on the subject. The researchers visited a hospital and collected data from December 2017 - January 2018. The sample population includes 27 surgeons, 34 anaesthetists, and 19 operating room and 38 surgical ward nurses at a university hospital in western Turkey. The collected data were analysed using SPSS 18.0 with frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation. Results: Of the sample population 61% were women, 47% were under 30 years old, and 83.1% had over 1 year of job experience. The mean score of item importance varied from 4.25 to 4.79. The items “patient's identity, procedure, operation site verification” (4.79±0.50) and “preoperative fasting” (4.76±0.53) had the highest scores. “Blood glucose control” (4.25±1.08) and “team members introduced” (4.32±0.53) had the lowest scores. It was suggested that “allergy” and “prophylaxis of antibiotic and deep vein thrombosis” be transferred to the “before the patients leave the ward” section. It was also suggested to add a compact checklist for local and emergency surgeries and employ artificial intelligence, like chatbots, to prevent surgery from starting before the checklist is completed. Conclusion: All checklist items were considered necessary. However, “Patient’s identity, procedure and site verification” was perceived as the most important item on the checklist. It was also suggested to add a compact checklist for local and emergency surgeries.