Nurse’s Wound Care Practices; University Hospital Example

Abstract

Background: Nurses are expected to provide effective and safe wound care to patient who have wound. With proper wound care applications, reducing wound infection rates, shortening recovery time, preventing complications and increasing patient satisfaction would be possible. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determined wound care practices of the nurses working in an university hospital. Methods: A descriptive design was used. The sample of the research was composed of 91 nurses working in an university hospital. The data were collected by face-to-face interview method with the data collection form prepared by the researchers between January 2nd and March 5th, 2013. Results: 61.5% of the nurses who took part in the study had practiced wound care in their clinic whereas 41.8% of them had received wound care education. The wound types that nurses had the most experience with were pressure injuries (83.6%), surgical wound (70.4%) and diabetic foot sores (50.6%). It was found that 72.6% of the nurses used dry dressings, 42.9% used wet dressings, 60.4% used antiseptic Serum Physiologic in wound care, while 44% did wound care with irrigation technique for clean wounds. It was determined that 91.2% of the nurses used dry gauze to cover the wound, and 45.1% applied analgesics during dressing on doctor's request. Additionally, in 86.8% of the cases, nurses were not taken their opinions in the selection of wound care products in the institutions they worked at, and 84.6% of them did not use specific wound assessment and care documents. Conclusion: The findings in this study reveal that the wound care education the nurses currently have is inadequate. Clean wounds are commonly washed with saline solution and covered with dry dressing, pain control during dressing is insufficient, and modern dressings are rarely used. © 2019, Dokuz Eylul University. All rights reserved.