Causes and Effects of Introducing Surgery Safety Checklist: A Review.

The medical treatment process, particularly surgery, is inescapably bound to potential complications or undesirable adverse events. This narrative review aims to present the causes and effects of the introduction of the WHO Surgery Safety Checklist (SSC), the use of which is expected to reduce the number of perioperative errors, complications, and mortality. To achieve this objective, we performed a bibliometric analysis of medical citations indexed in the PubMed database using the SSC subject heading. Findings revealed a total of 1441 articles meeting inclusion status, with 1171 published during the last decade. After the screening of titles and abstracts, the members of the research team selected 75 articles, deemed most relevant for inclusion in the review, which were then thoroughly analyzed. All in all, the findings were that the use of SSC appreciably reduced the number of simple logistic errors in the perioperative period decreasing the frequency of resulting complications and mortality.