Risk factors associated with surgical site infection following orthopaedic surgery in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review protocol

Objective: The objective of the scoping review will be to understand and describe risk factors associated with surgical site infection (SSI) in an orthopaedic surgery population in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa. This paper describes the protocol that will be used for the scoping review. Method: A comprehensive literature search will be conducted using Libraries to identify articles meeting the inclusion criteria, including both published and grey literature, in order to provide a broad overview of the reported risk factors associated with patients who have undergone an orthopaedic surgery with an outcome of SSI within 90 days of a procedure. Additional studies will be sourced by exploring the reference list of included eligible studies. By using a combination of related to each category, in different variations, along with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) in the search strategy, identified comprehensive and relevant literature for the scoping review. Results: It is anticipated the results will provide a baseline of risk factors that will inform the development of a risk assessment tool for clinical use. Conclusion: This protocol will inform the development of a scoping review to describe factors associated with SSIs following orthopaedic surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa.