Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common health care-associated infections, which increases patients′ financial burden, prolongs hospital days, and even raises mortality. Prevention of SSI requires the integration of a range of preventive measures before, during, and after surgery. This guideline is based on current evidence and clinical practice, and takes into account the balance between benefits and harms, the evidence quality level, cost and resource allocation, and patient values and preferences. We present in this guideline 22 recommendations suitable for Chinese conditions and specific to the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative periods. Preventive measures including nutritional support, immunosuppressive agents, bathing, mechanical bowel preparation with oral antibiotics, hair removal, optimal timing for administration of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis, and surgical hand preparation, were involved in the preoperative period. During the intraoperative and postoperative period, preventive measures include normothermia, blood glucose control, fluid therapy, drapes and gowns, wound-protector devices, incisional wound irrigations, prophylactic vacuum suction therapy, antimicrobial-coated sutures, antimicrobial prophylaxis in the presence of a drainage, optimal timing for wound drain removal, wound dressing, and surgical antibiotic prophylaxis prolongation. It should be noted that when applying recommendations, surgeons should combine the conditions of their hospitals and patients' conditions. More researches are required to further investigate unsolved problems.

Surgical site infection; Antibiotics; Prevention; Control