Descriptive and Correlational Study of Peritonitis in Haiti.
Condition: Peritonitis
MeSH terms: Peritonitis
Study type: Observational

Summary: 
      The primary objective:

      To study the prevalence, etiology, and factors associated with the severity of peritonitis
      and its complications in the surgery department of the State University Hospital of Haiti.

      Secondary objectives:

        -  Identify epidemiological characteristics.

        -  Describe the main etiologies encountered in the service

        -  Measure the time required for treatment and its consequences on the evolution of
           peritonitis.
    

Detailed description: 
      Generalized secondary peritonitis is one of the most common emergencies encountered in
      surgical departments . It is a major surgical condition with a mortality of up to 20% and
      classified as the third most common cause of surgical abdomens after appendicitis and
      intestinal obstruction . Delays in surgical management are conditions that increase
      mortality. While early prognostic assessment of peritonitis is essential for the objective
      classification of the severity of the disease, the late presentation of the majority of
      patients to health facilities affects this situation, further complicating effective
      management and promoting the occurrence of complications . It has been observed that
      classifying the severity of peritonitis has a major contribution to decision-making and
      improves management. Thus, many scoring systems have been designed and successfully used to
      assess the severity of acute peritonitis, including: Acute physiology and chronic health
      evaluation (APACHE) II score, Simplified acute physiology score (SAPS), Sepsis severity score
      (SSS), Ranson score, Imrite score, Mannheim peritonitis index (MPI) 6. The Mannheim
      Peritonitis Index (MPI) is a specific score, which is highly accurate and allows clinical
      parameters to be easily manipulated, allowing the individual prognosis of patients with
      peritonitis to be predicted . In Haiti, few studies on surgical pathologies are available.
      And with regard to peritonitis, only two thesis works have been listed on the subject,
      including one carried out at the Justinian University Hospital of Cap-Haitian on 176 patients
      by Dr. Jacques Julmice, who presents the main etiologies of peritonitis over a 5-year period.
      And the other one carried out at the Albert Schweizer Hospital by Dr. Moise Aristide, still
      on the etiological factors of peritonitis. These two studies are carried out outside the
      country's metropolitan region (the most populated region) and that they only explored the
      different etiologies without taking into account the time required for treatment and the
      gravity factors of peritonitis. Therefore, our study aims to explore the demographic,
      clinical and etiological factors of peritonitis in the main referral hospital in the
      metropolitan region of the country, as well as the time required for treatment and its
      relationship with the severity of the disease.
    

Intervention name(s): Epidemiological description
Intervention type(s): Other
Intervention description(s): Description of the characteristics of Peritonitis in Haiti
Observational model: Case-Only
Time perspective: Retrospective
Sampling method: Probability Sample
Study population: 
        The study population is composed of all patients diagnosed, hospitalized and operated on in
        the peritonitis ward during the study period.

        Sampling is probabilistic, simple random sampling. To estimate the sample size, we
        considered the peritonitis prevalence of an African study on the particularity of
        peritonitis in tropical environments, an environment that reflects our reality in
        ecological, demographic and epidemiological terms, namely 19% . The standard error rate
        chosen was 5%. This allows us to estimate our sample at 88 with a confidence interval of
        97%. Given the possibility of finding missing files at the State University Hospital of
        Haïti, our sample was adjusted to 20% (standard non-response rate).