Feridas crónicas em Portugal
: características, práticas e custos

Translated title of the thesis: Chronic wounds in Portugal: characteristics, practices and costs
  • Cláudia Manuela Pereira Barreiro (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Introduction: The growing prevalence of chronic wounds lead World Health Organization (2008) to designate it by hidden epidemic. A high impact phenomena that besides its prevalence and characterization is still less explored. With the objective of chronic wounds characterization in Portugal it prevalence, human carrier and wound characteristics were analysed as the interventions and associated costs. Material and Methods: Exploratory-Descriptive study of obtained variables in data collection occurred from January 2012 to December 2013, with a representative sample of Portuguese population that included internal patients in hospital and individuals that rely on community. Chronic wounds were considered according with Fletcher, pressure ulcer, leg ulcers, diabetic foot lesions and malign wounds. Results: Of the 108840 observed individuals, 2182 had chronic wounds, corresponding to a prevalence of 2% in the observed individuals and an estimated prevalence of 1,6/1000 residents, 2 in 100 individuals that go to community have a chronic wound and 9 in 100 of interned residents. The pressure ulcers and leg ulcers are the more prevalent (0,5/1000 residents). In hospital the more prevalent wound is ulcer pressure and in the community is the leg ulcer. The carriers of chronic wounds have ages between 65 and 79 years, are non-actives, they have risk of hypertension (44,5%), diabetes (25,1%) and peripheral venous insufficiency (24,7%), 61,8% have pain related to the wound. The average time of wound existence is 1 year and 1 month, they have an average score PUSH of 11,45 and 1/5 have associated infection. The patch material more used in the complex wound treatment is hydrogel (26,3%) and hydrofibre (21,4%) and it is performed in the most of times twice per week. The direct cost of each chronic wound varies between the minimum of 1,52€ and the maximum of 166,32€, the average is 11,01€. The medium cost per treatment is higher in community comparing to hospital, the wound etiology with higher costs is the mixed leg ulcer by pressure of category IV. In pressure ulcers the category III is the most representative (30,3%) and in just 40,24% of individuals was applied the Braden scale. In leg ulcers 62,68% were exclusively venous and in 20,33% the differential diagnosis was not performed, ankle pressure arm index was just performed in 9,8% of individuals with leg ulcer. Conclusion: The results of this study contribute to a global knowledge and more explored in the chronic wounds phenomena in Portugal, providing a data set that will serve as base for other researches and constitute fundamental matters to the development of promoting measures of efficient, secure and quality care.
Date of Award7 Mar 2017
Original languagePortuguese
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorJoão Costa Amado (Supervisor) & Paulo Alves (Co-Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Chronic wounds prevalence
  • Individual characteristics
  • Wound characteristics
  • Treatment
  • Costs

Designation

  • Mestrado em Feridas e Viabilidade Tecidular

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