Evaluation of non-healing wounds

Abstract

Introduction:The treatment of patients with non-healing wounds requires a systematic approach, including a complete wound assessment and an accurate description of this assessment. Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective study -content analysis of documentation from various localities of the Czech Republic. Using the cluster analysis method to find out if there are groups that differ in their approach to evaluating the parameters of non-healing wounds. 331 dossiers from 16 inpatient and outpatient care providers and social service providers were analysed. Goals: The goal was to assess how non-healing wounds are evaluated and documented in clinical practice at selected health care and social care providers in the Czech Republic. To verify whether a clinical algorithm for evaluating non-healing wounds is available in clinical practice for selected providers and whether it is used. Results: The resulting data can be divided into three separate clusters. Individual groups can be characterised as cluster 1 -"mixed documentation", which contains 280 content analyses; cluster 2 -"nursing documentation of wound healing consultants", which includes 45 content analyses; cluster 3 -"nursing documentation -pre-printed form", which contains six content analyses. Cluster 2 shows more frequent use of objectification in the evaluation of wound parameters. Conclusions: The research showed that evaluating the parameters of non-healing wounds is very inconsistent. The recommended procedure for assessing the condition of non-healing wounds is not adequately followed and accepted in clinical practice. We have verified that the presence of a wound healing consultant is related to the more frequent use of accurate scales to assess wounds.