TABLE 1.

Study characteristics (n = 8)

Reference (country)	Study aim	Design	Surgical context	Population and sample	Funding	Conflict of interest
Anderson et al 36 (United States)	To determine patient awareness and knowledge of risks, consequences, and prevention of SSI	Cross‐sectional survey	Recent surgical procedure	Convenience sample of 50 adult patients at risk of SSI or who were already diagnosed with an SSI	Unknown	No
Lee et al 37 (United States)	To gain an understanding of the current application of mHealth and PGHD in postoperative incision management and SSI surveillance	Health technology assessment, including a literature review and key stakeholder interviews	SSI surveillance technology and PGHD postoperative care	25 interviews with key stakeholders, including two patients with experience in the field of mHealth and PGHD for SSI	Yes	No
McCaughan et al 38 (United Kingdom)	To explore patients' views and experiences of living with a surgical wound healing by secondary intention	Qualitative, descriptive design, using semi‐structured, individual interviews	General, vascular, and orthopaedic surgery	20 patients with open surgical wounds, 11 women and nine men	Yes	No
McNair et al 39 (United Kingdom)	To define a core outcome set for studies in colorectal cancer surgery	Consensus methodology—including systematic review, patient interviews, survey, Delphi methods	Rectal (33, 35%), left (34, 35%), and right (30, 29%) colonic tumours	81 colorectal cancer centres were invited; 63 (78%) responded, including 90 surgeons and 8 clinical nurse specialists Patient response rate was 97 out of 267 invited (36%)	Yes	Yes a
Reeves et al 40 (United Kingdom)	To establish feasibility of an RCT to compare the effectiveness of different dressings or no dressing on SSI following elective surgery and to develop a valid method for the assessment of SSI to be used in the main trial	Phase A: Case studies with interviews and various surveys Phase B: Pilot RCT, interviews, validation of surveys, health economic analyses	Elective and unplanned (emergency) abdominal surgeries, healing by primary intention	Phase A: Interviews: 102 participants (69 HCPs and 33 patients Survey: 727 patients in 20 hospitals Questionnaire refinement: participants, n = 37; HCPs, n = 24 Phase B: Pilot RCT: 394 participants. Acceptability interviews: 55 participants	Yes	No
Sanger et al 41 (United States)	To explore patient experience of SSI and openness to a mobile health wound monitoring “app” as a novel solution	Mixed method design with semi‐structured interviews and surveys	Abdominal surgery	13 English speaking adult patients who had postdischarge wound complications after undergoing an intra‐abdominal operation	Yes	No
Sanger et al 42 (United States)	To examine conflicts, tensions, and agreements in the course of designing a novel, patient‐centred data collection technology tool for mobile postdischarge surgical wound monitoring	Iterative design process, including semi‐structured interviews, surveys, critical incident technique, and “think‐aloud” approach	Patients who had recently experienced postdischarge SSI in a tertiary academic medical centre and trauma centre	13 patients who experienced a postdischarge SSI; 6 patient advocates who volunteered to advise the hospital on matters affecting patients; 11 health professionals who had experienced routinely managing postdischarge infections	Yes	No
Wiseman et al 43 United States	To explore the feasibility of a mHealth smartphone‐based intervention for wound monitoring to promote early recognition of wound complications after discharge	Cross‐sectional survey	Vascular surgery	50 adult patients undergoing vascular surgery, not in in intensive care unit	Yes	No

Abbreviations: HCPs, health care professionals; MDs, medical doctors; mHealth, mobile health; PGHD, patient‐generated health data; RCT, randomised control trial; RNs, registered nurses; SSI, surgical site infection.

^aCompeting interests declared.