Prevenção e "nascimento" das úlceras de pressão em doentes hospitalizados

: realidade, desafio ou quimera?

Abstract

Pressure ulcers (PU) are a reality in hospitals and other health services. Once the incidence, prevalence and specific treatment, prolong the length of stay and increase suffering and morbidity of patients, Pressure Ulcers establish an area of interest for research in nursing. Knowing what they are, their causes and risk factors allow the nurse to implement effective prevention actions. This study targets to characterize patients with PU hospitalized at the Garcia de Orta Hospital (HGO). Thus, it was developed a quantitative descriptive and correlational study that allowed achieving this objective. The study includes 34 patients with PU, admitted into the following wards: Medicine, Surgery, Orthopedics, Intensive Care Unit and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery. The data collection instrument consists of an analysis grid that contains demographic, clinical and therapeutic information, and was applied only by one investigator. For the statistical treatment of data, we used the computer program SPSS version 17. From the data analysis it was found that: individuals with PU are predominantly elderly (73.5%); most of these individuals already had the PU when they entered to the service where they were hospitalized (64.7%); most individuals has a time of stay from 6 days to 1 month (44.1%); the greater the length of stay, the highest is the number of PU that develops in individuals; the majority is classified as being at high risk for the development PU (97.1%); the most severe PU prevails in the sacrum region (32.4%) and ankles (29.4%); hypertension (52.9%), respiratory diseases (21.2%) and diabetes (32.4%) are the most frequent pathologies. The prevalence of PU was of 5.5% for the studied sample. There was a shortage of nursing records with the purpose of prevention at the institutional level, as well as the existence of outdated protocols and with few actions with the intent of preventing PU.

Date of Award	Jun 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Carlos Laranjeira (Supervisor)