Design: Prospective prevalence study

Population, Sample, Setting, Years: Data were collected on all patients with PU’s and SU’s who were admitted during October 2001from 4 home healthcare agencies. There were 91 subjects, mean age was 73.2 years, 63% were female and 25% were of minority ethnicity. More than 2/3rds had PU’s (69.2%), 35% had SU’s and 4% had both types of ulcers.

Variables: The independent variable was the type of dressing technique and the outcomes were healing status at the end of care and the number of home visits provided.

Methods: Data were collected from the clinical records.

Findings: Almost half (48%) of the patients received moist wound care dressing techniques; 18% received wet-to-dry dressing care and the remainder had no dressing required. For the patients for whom complete data were available, healing occurred in 95% of the patients with PU’s and 93% of patients with SU’s. There was no significant difference by type of dressing for either group. Patients with SU’s who received moist wound care required significantly fewer home visits than those receiving wet to dry care (18.1 versus 43.4 visits, respectively).

Conclusions: Wet-to-dry dressings continue to be used despite recommendations for moist wound healing in a sizable minority of home healthcare patients. While the healing outcomes are equivalent in this sample, resource use is very different suggesting that more efficient care can be provided by use of moist wound care techniques.

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Back to 15th International Nursing Research Congress
Sigma Theta Tau International
July 22-24, 2004