MULTIVARIATE DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE FOR CHARACTERIZING CORRELATION STRUCTURE OF AIR CONTAMINANTS IN OPERATING ROOMS

In this study, data concerning air quality in Operating Rooms (ORs), collected under different conditions, were analyzed. In 18 ORs of general surgery, concentrations of particles with aerodynamic diameter higher than 5 mu m and 10 mu m, microbial charge, air change numbers and differential pressure were measured. To quantify the influence of the surgical environment on the Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) so to minimize the risk in hospitalized patients the data were collected under different conditions. The correlation pattern analysis, based on factorial multivariate techniques, put in evidence the indoor environmental conditions in which parameters characterizing air quality show a strong correlation. Moreover, this analysis allowed to define which staff behaviors introduced the greatest variations in the correlation pattern. Moreover, a clustering procedure allows defining different typologies of ORs, based on their characteristics. The multivariate approach allows to identify the role of each air quality parameter in the correlation structure of the data and to evaluate how their role plays when the condition of the surgical environment changes.