Management of cellulitis and the role of the nurse: a 5-year retrospective multicentre study in Fako, Cameroon

Abstract

Objective This was a 5 year retrospective study of patients’ hospital records to find out how patients with cellulitis are managed and the care provided by nurses to these patients in some hospitals in Fako, Cameroon. Results Of the 236 cases of cellulitis identified from a study of hospital records, 202 were included in the study. Most of the participants (55%) were female and the mean (SD) age was 43 (1.1) years. Cellulitis accounted for 2.3% of admissions in this study. The predisposing factors identified were; the presence of trauma (60.5%), HIV infection (18.6%), alcohol consumption (8.4%) and tobacco use (4.8%). Commonly recorded complications were necrosis (32.2%), sepsis (23%), abscess formation (19.5%), and ulcer development (19.5%). Medical management was with antibiotic therapy, including mostly penicillin (26.5%), aminoglycoside (22.1%), nitroimidazole (20.2%) and cephalosporin (19.6%). Debridement (46.7%), and incision and drainage (44.4%) were the most implemented surgical interventions. Nursing care, as found in patients’ hospital records were predominantly on medication administration (98.0%), vital signs assessment (90.5%) and patient assessment (53%). Cellulitis therefore was found among a substantial number of patients and management was predominantly with combination antibiotics therapy and inadequate nursing care. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-019-4497-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Evaluation of various antibiotics used in the treatment of cellulitis at a tertiary care hospital

“…This was found similar to the study published by Trond Bruun et al 17 Higher prevalence of negative cultures when compared to positive were observed in this study as observed in the study published by Klotz C et al, Anis Mzabi et al 18,19 All the admitted cases were placed on monotherapy to 17(29%) patients and dual/combination therapy 41(71%) patients. However, this proportion was almost similar to the study publication by Nahyeni Bassah et al 20 Patients with non-resolving infections underwent surgical procedures such as debridement 15(26%), incision and drainage 13(22%), fasciotomy 6(10%).…”