Descriptive and Correlational Study of the Epidemiological, Clinical and Etiological Characteristics of Peritonitis in the Surgical Department of the State University Hospital of Haiti During the Period From January 2013 to December 2018

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.