Abstract:
Introduction: Hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus, is one of the most common
gynecologic procedures performed worldwide. As a major surgical procedure complications may
happen in the intraoperative and postoperative period. The overall complication rate ranges from
3% to 56.5% in different studies worldwide. There are several factors that may affect the rate and
type of complications which include patient or surgical factors. But, there was no research in the
study area and studies in tertiary hospitals in Ethiopia were descriptive for the prevalence, type,
indication, and complication of hysterectomy.
Objective: To assess the proportion and associated factors of complications among women who
had elective hysterectomy at two tertiary hospitals in Bahir Dar, from January 1, 2018 to
December 30, 2020.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at two tertiary Hospitals in Bahir Dar,
Ethiopia. The sample size was 354 cases that had an elective hysterectomy in the time period
from January 1, 2018 to December 30, 2020. A checklist was used to retrieve information from
the patient medical document. The collected data was cleaned, coded, and entered into EPI- Info
7 and then exported in to SPSS 23 for analysis and binary logistic regression was computed.
Result: The overall rate of complication was 58.2 % with a 95 % confidence interval (53.1% to
63.3%). The most common complication was anemia (new onset or worsening) 50.2% (178 of
354) followed by infectious morbidities (12.4%). None of the independent variables were
significantly associated with the overall proportion of complications.
Conclusion and recommendation: The overall proportion of complications was higher than the
previous reports in Ethiopia and most other countries. More local analytical studies on specific
complications and associated factors are essential.
Keywords: Tibebe Ghion, Felege Hiwot, Elective-hysterectomy, Cross-sectional study