Introduction:

Currently there is a high frequency of surgical wounds complications, which are deviations from the expected evolution in performing the surgical act, due to multiple factors.To this is added the current problem of the COVID-19 pandemic, many positive patients require an urgent elective surgical treatment to avoid the development of possible complications.

Objective:

To identify the risk factors associated with surgical wounds complications in COVID-19 patients.

Materials and methods:

A correlational, analytical, observational, crosssectional and retrospective study was developed. 90 medical records of positive COVID-19 patients who attended the Surgical Specialties Service were reviewed applying an observation guide. For the analysis of the data, Pearson's Chi-square and Odds Ratio (OR) were applied with a p value <0,05 as significant and a confidence interval of 95% respectively.

Results:

A prevalence of 15.56% was found for complications of surgical wounds, the risk factors associated with these complications were male gender (OR = 3.833), age of the patient over 50 years (OR = 6.462), presence of diabetes (OR = 9,733), surgery time more than 4 hours (OR = 9,733) and type of contaminated and dirty surgery (OR = 10,286).

Conclusion:

Risk factors associated with complications in surgical wounds were identified as gender, advanced age, diabetes, as well as surgery time more than 4 hours and contaminated and dirty surgery. It is recommendable to develop a specific prevention guide to avoid some complications.