Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) is a subject of great concern of the healthcare services. Among the topographies of the HAIs, Surgical Site Infection (SSI) is directly related to surgical procedures, and is currently one of the most important among the HAIs 1 ^- 3 .

In a study of the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) involving information of 850,000 general surgeries performed in the United States, it was found an overall incidence of SSI equal to 1.9% 2 . In Brazil, data on the incidence of SSI in general and specific surgeries vary from 1.4% to 38.8% 3 ^- 9 . It is important to note that, of these studies, only two refer to data from general surgeries 3 ^, 8 .

SSI leads to serious consequences, including increased costs due to its treatment 10 and increased length of hospital stay 10 ^- 11 . The risk of death in patients with SSI is increased when compared to those who did not develop an infection 11 .

The serious consequences imposed on patients who developed SSI determine the need for efforts to create strategies for the prevention of this infection. One of the strategies used is the determination of risk factors, which allows identifying clinical situations or conditions that predispose to the development of SSI. In this sense, the identification of risk factors for SSI contributes to the early adoption of nursing interventions that aim to minimize this type of postoperative complication.

Several risk factors are known in the literature as predisposing to SSI and make up the surgical infection risk index of the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance System (NNIS) 12 , such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) index, which classifies patients according to their clinical condition 1 ; the Wound class, which represents the classification of the surgical wound by the surgical team in terms of the potential presence of microorganisms 1 and; the Duration of Surgery 4 ^, 13 .

Other risk factors such as: Body Mass Index (BMI) 13 ^), smoking 5 , video-assisted procedures 13 ^- 4 , blood transfusion 9 , non-performance of preoperative bath 9 and pre-existing chronic diseases 1 ^, 9 ^, 13 , are also mentioned in the literature and were identified as associated with SSI, in studies on the subject.In the Brazilian literature, there is a lack of studies on general surgeries, which makes it difficult to estimate the SSI rates and the identification of risk factors associated with infection. Therefore this study arose from the need to identify risk factors for SSI in general surgeries, since the scientific production on this subject has privileged the survey in specific surgeries 4 ^- 7 ^, 9 .