The prevalence of pressure sores in four European countries

Abstract

A report of the results of a one-year survey of pressure damage in hospital patients in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and the UK

Pressure sore prevalence: a national survey

“…Studies conducted in hospitals and multisite facilities showed that prevalence rates in Scandinavia vary from 3 to 14.8% (see Table 1) ( Peterson & Bittman, 1971; Abilgaard & Daugaard, 1979; Ek & Boman, 1982), from 5.3 to 19.7% elsewhere in Europe (most data from the UK) (Barbenel et al ., 1976; David et al ., 1983 ; Warner & Hall, 1986; Nyquist & Hawthorn, 1987; Dealey, 1991; Clark & Cullum, 1992; Allock et al 1994 ; Dealey, 1994; O'Dea, 1995), and from 4 to 23% in the USA and Canada ( Allman et al ., 1986 ; Shannon & Skorga, 1989; Langemo et al ., 1990 ; Meehan, 1990; Gawron, 1994; Bergstrom et al. 1995 ; McNaughton & Brazil, 1995).…”

Pressure ulcer prevalence and incidence in intensive care patients: a literature review

“…Most of these studies were conducted in Europe (Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia) and USA. One of the studies was conducted by O’Dea (1995) in Europe (the Netherlands, Italy, UK and Germany) involving adult patients in 177 hospitals, and it revealed a prevalence of 11·1% ( n = 18 882) (Thoroddsen, 1999). The incidence of pressure ulcers in the German population in general was 0·5% resulting in 400 000 patients, while 1·3% of the patients developed new pressure ulcers during their treatment in German hospitals (Leffmann et al ., 2002).…”

The impact of assessing the prevalence of pressure ulcers on the willingness of health care institutions to plan and implement activities to reduce the prevalence

“…Several countries have organized national pressure ulcer prevalence surveys (Meehan 1994, Barrois et al . 1995, O’Dea 1995, Barczak et al . 1997).…”