Introduction: Surgical site infection is one of the most common postoperative complications that causes significant postoperative morbidity and mortality leading to prolonged hospital stay and increases cost. About 25-30 percent infections are preventable to the adherence to strict guidelines by health care workers. There are many factors that affect susceptibility of any wound to infection.

Aim and Objectives: To study the frequency, common risk factors, different organisms and complications of surgical site wound infections.

Materials and Methods: This prospective study was conducted in the General surgery department amongst 527 patients for surgery, both emergency as well as elective.

Results and Analysis: The infection rate in clean cases was 9.04%, contaminated 16.20%, clean contaminated 20% and in dirty 32.87%. Overall infection rate was 16.12%. In dirty cases out of 73 cases 6(25%) were mild, 7(29.16%) moderate, 11(45.83%) severe infections including two burst abdomen. The SSI rate in elective surgeries was 12.08% and in emergency surgeries it was 21.39%. The infection rate in patients with hospital stay 0-4 days was 13.06%. The infection rate in preoperative hospital stay of 5-8 days is 24.32%. The wound infection rate in anaemic patient was 25.71%. The postoperative wound infection was 21.34% when drains were used. Coagulase positive Staphylococcus aureus was a single major organism obtained.

Conclusion: The overall infection rate was 16.12% which was mainly due to the higher infection rate in the contaminated (20%) and dirty procedures (32.87%).