The Association Between Postoperative Fluid Balance and Postoperative Complications in Adults Undergoing Gastrointestinal Surgery: Protocol for a Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND

Fluid balance in patients who have undergone gastrointestinal surgery is known to be challenging to monitor, resulting in imprecise and inaccurate measurements. Despite this knowledge, any association between fluid balance accuracy and the development of postoperative complications in the early postoperative period is limited. This scoping review aims to map the existing knowledge between fluid monitoring and the development of postoperative morbidity, mortality, and length of hospital stays (LoS) in patients who have undergone gastrointestinal surgery.

METHODS

The review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidelines for scoping reviews and will be reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) recommendations. The search will be conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library. Data extraction will be charted based on trial characteristics and include study information, methodology, basic data, surgical data, methods for the monitoring of fluid balance, accuracy of fluid balance monitoring, guidelines used for postoperative fluids, fluid intake, fluid loss, LoS, morbidity, and mortality.

RESULTS

A structured overview will be summarized using descriptive statistics and presented in tables and figures with a supplementary narrative summary of additional findings.

CONCLUSION

This planned scoping review will help identify existing knowledge and gaps in literature regarding methods in fluid monitoring, as well as any correlation between fluid monitoring and the development of postoperative complications to support further research in the area.

© 2026 The Author(s). Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation.