Background: Surgical checklist was introduced by the World Health Organization to reduce the number of surgical deaths and complications. During a surgical conference on "safety in surgical practice," it was noticed that the awareness and the use of surgical checklist are poor in Nigerian hospitals. This study was aimed at determining the awareness and use of surgical checklist among the theater users in our hospital, factors militating against its implementation, and make recommendations.
Methods: This is a prospective study at Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti; questionnaires were distributed to three groups of theater users - surgeons, anesthetists, and perioperative nurses. The responses were collated by the lead researcher, entered into Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, exported, and analyzed with SPSS.
Results: Eighty-five questionnaires were distributed, 70 were returned, and 4 were discarded due to poor filling. The studied 66 comprised 40, 12, and 14 surgeons, anesthetists, and perioperative nurses, respectively. Fifty-five (83.3%) of the responders indicated awareness of the checklist but only 12 (21.8%) correctly stated that the main objective is for patients' safety and for safe surgery. Major barriers to its use include lack of training 58.2%, lack of assertiveness of staff 58.2%, and that its delays operation list 47.2%.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated high level of awareness of surgical checklist in our hospital; however, this awareness is based on wrong premises as it is not reflected in the true aim of the checklist. Majority of the responders would want to be trained on the use of checklist despite the highlighted barriers.
Keywords: Awareness; Nigeria; safety; surgical checklist.