Evaluating cost of materials for wound care provided to patients at home

Abstract

Purpose: to evaluate the dressing material costs provided to patients under home care for the public service of Brazilian health relate with the socio-demographic profile, the type of wound, and associated comorbidities.Design: Documentary, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. Subjects and setting:The sample consisted of 334 medical records filed by the public health service that provided materials and covers to patients with wounds registered in primary care in the city of Teresina, state of Piauí, Brazil, to perform dressing in domicile.Methods: Utilization of a semi-structured instrument for collecting data, containing information about the sociodemographic profile, comorbidities, number of wounds and cost of materials dispensed. In the inferential analysis, we used the Kruskal-Wallis test and the MannWhitney test to compare the total costs of treatment.Results: There was a predominance of men (65.5%), elderly (49.1%), with a prevalence of pressure ulcers (44.6%), in which the main cover was the collagenase (53.9%) followed by essential fatty acids (41.1%).