Pressure ulcer rates of stroke patients in a public rehabilitation hospital and training rates of nurses for pressure ulcer

Abstract

Aim: Stroke is a brain vascular disease that affects millions of people in the world every year and causes disability. Complications following a stroke are known to increase hospital stay and patient care costs. A complication of stroke, pressure ulcer, can be avoided with education of the caregiver. That is why we aimed to investigate the rates of pressure ulcers of patients who were hospitalized in a public rehabilitation hospital because of stroke. Secondary aim of this study is to investigate the in-service trainings of the nurses about pressure ulcers.

Methods: This is an observational study. The files of inpatient stroke cases were retrospectively analyzed for dates between 01/01/2016 and 12/31/2018 and the data were collected. Education service files are analyzed for in-service trainings about pressure ulcers. Percentages were calculated for statistical analysis.

Results: Of the 3640 patients hospitalized in our hospital, 1776 had stroke (48.80%). The number of patients with acute stroke was 1216 (68.47%). The mean number of days of hospitalization was 27.6 days. When the demographic characteristics of the patients were examined, 1005 of the inpatients were male (56.59%), 771 were female (43.41%). The mean age of the male patients was 64.18 and the mean age of the female patients was 68.78 respectively. When the risk factors for stroke were examined, 59.74% of the hospitalized patients had hypertension (HT), 25.16% had diabetes mellitus (DM), 13.56% had hyperlipidemia (HL), 15.03% had cardiac disease, 6.41% had urinary infection, 3.71% had pulmonary infection, 0.5% had deep vein thrombosis, and 0.56% had malignancy. When the rate of pressure ulcers were examined, the number of stroke patients with pressure ulcers was 123 (6.92%) and no new pressure ulcers were observed during hospitalization. The rate of stroke patients with pressure ulcers among all pressure ulcer patients was calculated as 32.97%. The most common anatomic localization was sacrum 65 (52.84%) while the least common localization was elbow region with 1 patient (0.81%). The in-service trainings given to the nurses for pressure ulcers were 2 per year and the rate of nurses attending the training was determined as 71.5%. The number of trainings for medical companions was 12 per year and the participation rate to the training was 57.3%.

Conclusion: The incidence of pressure ulcers in stroke patients was determined as 6.92% and the most frequent localization was sacrum. The fact that the rate of new pressure ulcer opened in the hospital is zero indicates that in-service training and awareness about pressure ulcers in the rehabilitation hospital is sufficient.