# Harmful incidents following gynaecological ambulatory surgery: A scoping review

## TL;DR

This scoping review maps harmful incidents after gynaecological outpatient surgery, finding most are physical, with anxiety as the only psychological harm.

## Contribution

The study systematically identifies and categorizes harmful incidents following gynaecological ambulatory surgery for the first time.

## Key findings

- Most harmful incidents were physiological, such as infections, bleeding, and pain.
- Anxiety was the only psychological harm identified.
- No social harmful incidents were reported in the included studies.

## Abstract

To map the types and frequencies of harmful incidents identified in research to occur following gynaecological ambulatory surgery.

A scoping review was conducted using the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis.

MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Scopus and Web of Science was searched for records published from inception to February of 2025.

Forty-one studies were included. Most of the harmful incidents identified to have occurred following gynaecological ambulatory surgery were mapped as physiological harm, including postoperative infections, bleeding and pain. The only harmful incident pertaining to other dimensions of harm was anxiety, which was mapped as psychological harm.

In this scoping review, all except one of the identified and mapped harmful incidents resulted from the physiological impact and tissue damage of undergoing surgical treatment. Anxiety was the only psychological harm identified to have occurred following gynaecological ambulatory surgery. No social harmful incidents were identified from the included studies.

The Open Science Framework; https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VD6CB.