Assessment of pressure sores: prevalence and identification of patients in high risk

Abstract

Despite the rapid developments of Medical and Nursing science bedsores still remain a diachronic and critical problem. Aim: To investigate the problem of bedsores in a big public hospital and assess the validity of a methodology to identify the patients at high risk for bedsore development. Material - Method: For the purpose of the study two special protocols, one for patients with bedsores and one for the population at risk were developed by a group of experts. The first criterion for inclusion of the patients at the high risk group was the 15 days of bed rest and the second was the assessment using the Norton scale score (< 12). All the patients (N = 724) in medical, surgical and intensive care units at a specific point of time constituted the sample of the study. Results: From the sample. 23 patients (12 men and 11 women) were found having 59 bedsores. Among them 21 (91.3%) belonged to the population at risk and 12 (52.17%) had bedsores prior to hospitalization. Their mean age was 68 years and their average length of stay 44 days. The prevalence of bedsores was estimated to be 3.18% - 3.32% for medical, 1.31% for surgical, and 23.08% for the intensive care units. Initially. 112 patients (15,47%) were included in the population at risk. By adding the second criterion they came down to 34 (30.9%) with 21 (61.76%) of them having bedsores. The sensitivity of the two criteria in combination was 91% and the specificity 86%. Conclusions: The results are in agreement with previous studies conducted in the study site as well as in other Greek hospitals. The criteria of bed rest, age and Norton scale score can be combined in order to identify the population at high risk for bedsore development.