Benefits of WSES guidelines application for the management of intra-abdominal infections (World Journal of Emergency Surgery)

IntroductionThe use of antibiotics is very high in the departments of emergency and trauma surgery above all in the treatment of the intra-abdominal infections to decrease morbidity and mortality rates but often the antimicrobial drugs are prescribed without a rationale and they are second-line antibiotics; this clinical practice increases costs without decreasing mortality.Aim of our study is to report the results in the application to the clinical practice of the World Society Emergency Surgeons (WSES) guidelines for the management of intra-abdominal infections, at the department of Emergency and Trauma Surgery of the University Hospital of Parma (Italy) in 2012. Methods: A retrospective observational analysis was carried out about patients admitted in the department of Emergency and Trauma Surgery of Parma between January 2011 and December. The data are expressed as percentages (%) and means (± SD). The results of the compared groups were analyzed using the Pearson’s Chi-Square and Fisher Exact tests, as appropriate, for proportions involving discrete data. The Fisher Exact test was used when the data were unequally distributed among the cells of the table, when the expected frequency of any cell was less than 5, or the when the total number (N) was less than 50.For means involving continuous numerical data, the independent sample T test and the Mann–Whitney U-test were used for normally and abnormally distributed data, respectively (the data had been previously tested for normality using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test). A p-value