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Abstract
Surgical site infection is a potential postoperative complication following spinal surgery, which may affect wound healing, length of hospitalization, and overall patient outcomes. Structured postoperative wound monitoring is essential to enable early detection of infection, particularly among patients with limited access to follow-up care. This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of surgical site infection and to assess the ability of the Bluebelle Wound Healing Questionnaire (BWHQ) in identifying wound healing status among postoperative spinal surgery patients. An ambispective cohort observational study was conducted using medical records and BWHQ assessments at Dr. Zainoel Abidin General Hospital from June to September 2024. A total of 96 patients were included, the majority of whom were male (60.4%), with a mean age of 56.55 years. Surgical site infection occurred in 19 patients (19.8%). The study subjects Baseline demographic and clinical data were obtained from medical records, while wound healing outcomes were assessed directly using the BWHQ instrument by the researcher during patient evaluation, The mean BWHQ score was higher in patients with infection (28.79) compared to those without infection (22.88). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated an AUC of 0,837, indicating good discriminative ability of BWHQ in distinguishing infected from non-infected wounds. Additionally, wound healing outcomes were significantly associated with sex (p = 0.024), educational level (p = 0.005), and age (p = 0.000). This study shows that BWHQ is an effective tool for postoperative wound monitoring following spinal surgery, including its potential application in remote telemonitoring, particularly among patients at higher risk of poor wound healing.
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