Pressure Ulcers in Admitted Patients at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background Pressure ulcers (PUs) occur when the skin covering a weight-bearing part of the body is compressed for a long time between bone, any other part of the body, bed, chair, or any other hard surface. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of pressure ulcers at a tertiary care hospital in all specialty departments including COVID-19. Methods A retrospective study was conducted at North West General Hospital and Research Center, Peshawar, Pakistan. After obtaining ethical approval, data were obtained from the hospital database from July 2020 to June 2021. The keywords “bed sore,” “pressure sore,” and “pressure ulcer” were used to search for relevant cases, and patient demographics, including age and gender, site of pressure ulcer, stage of pressure ulcer, whether the pressure ulcer was single or multiple, length of stay at the hospital, and specialty department, were collected. Results In total, 99 patients met the inclusion criteria, of which 65 (65.7%) were males, while 34 (34.3%) were females. The age of the patients ranged from 15 to 92 years, with a mean age of 59.93 years. Of the patients, 87 (87.9%) had acquired only a single pressure ulcer. Stage 2 pressure ulcers were the most documented, making up 43.1% of the total cases reported, while stage 4 cases were only 3.3%. The sites most frequently affected by pressure ulcers were the gluteal and sacral regions, accounting for 34.4% and 30.3%, respectively. The incidence of pressure ulcers was the highest in the COVID-19 ward, i.e., 25.3%, followed by the neurosurgery ward with a 20.2% incidence. Conclusion Pressure ulcers occur frequently in almost all the specialty departments of a healthcare setting, especially in COVID-19 and neurosurgery wards, and impose significant physical, psychological, and financial burdens. The prevention of pressure ulcers is the best approach to avert patients and their families from all the burdens associated with pressure ulcers.

The PRINCOVID Retrospective Study

“…In addition, because of the retrospective design with a data collection method from the electronic clinical records, there may be an underestimation of the prevalence and severity of PI in relation to less documented or lacked care information in an era of hospital overload. Although this is a single-center study, the study took place in a tertiary care center covering a wide geographical referral area, encompassing several specialized ICUs, and receiving several patients transferred from other institutions for advanced ICU care, reaching a higher sample size than most investigations in this field 19,20,27,33 ; hence, the external validity of our results is, nonetheless, considerable.…”

Elucidação sobre as úlceras de pressão

“…Os pacientes em risco de úlcera por pressão devem mudar de posição a cada seis horas, caso sejam de alto risco, esse tempo diminui para quatro horas (Webb, 2020). Aqueles pacientes que não conseguem se reposicionarem sozinhos, devem receber auxílio com equipamento apropriado (Qazi et al, 2022).…”

Pressure Ulcers Incidence in a Perioperative Neurosurgical Setting

“…Our data show that the incidence is considerably lower in comparison with data reported in current literature (4.8 vs 10.8%) [30][31][32][33][34][35] . With specific focus to neurosurgical settings, it is important to underline the fact that high incidence rates variability is reported in literature 36,37 .…”