THURSDAY, Nov. 14, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- More than a third of surgical patients develop complications as a result of their procedure, a new study shows.

About 38% of adult patients suffer an adverse event during or following their surgery, researchers reported Nov. 13 in the BMJ.

Nearly half of these complications result in serious, life-threatening or fatal harm, results showed.

What’s more, about 60% of the complications were potentially preventable and 21% were definitely or probably preventable, researchers report.

“Adverse events remain widespread in contemporary healthcare, causing substantial and preventable patient harm during hospital admission,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Andre Duclos, a professor of public health with the University Claude Bernard Lyon in France.

However, surgeons aren’t the only reason why these complications occurred, the researchers found.

“These incidents were not solely a concern for surgeons in operating rooms, but involved healthcare professions throughout the hospital,” their report noted.

For the study, researchers analyzed more than 1,000 admissions for surgery at 11 Massachusetts hospitals that took place in 2018.

Complications developed in 383 (38%) of surgeries, with major adverse events occurring in 160 (16%), results show.

About half (49%) of the complications were related to surgical procedures, followed by adverse drug events (27%), healthcare-associated infections (12%) and hospital-related problems like falls or pressure ulcers (11%).

Half of the complications cropped up in general care units, compared with 26% in operating rooms and 13% in intensive care units.

Worse, many of these complications could have been avoided, researchers said.

“About one-fourth of all patients experienced potentially preventable adverse events, with one in 10 concerning events that were probably or definitely preventable,” the researchers concluded in a journal news release.

Possible reasons for these complications could involve doctor burnout, inadequate nurse staffing and failure to utilize technology that could detect and prevent the health problems, according to an accompanying editorial written by Helen Haskell, president of Mothers Against Medical Error.

But these events also keep occurring because little progress has been made in recruiting patients and families to help unravel the causes of complications, Haskell added.

“If we are truly interested in advancing patient safety, patients and families need to be empowered to weigh in on the accuracy of the accounts of their own care and participate in finding solutions,” Haskell concluded.

More information

Johns Hopkins Medicine has more on common complications following surgery.

SOURCE: BMJ Group, news release, Nov. 13, 2024