150 patient experiences with a soft silicone foam dressing

Pain, malodour and exudate from acute and chronic wounds can be catastrophic to the patient. Excessive exudate results in significant tissue damage to the wound bed and surrounding skin, reduces quality of life, and often requires costly specialist service input. Effective wound assessment and management including appropriate dressing choice is, therefore, paramount to ensure wound healing can take place in a timely manner. This observational evaluation explores 150 ward-based patients who presented with acute and chronic exuding wounds; it examines and evaluates the proposed benefits of the Cutimed(®) Siltec foam dressing range over a 4-month period in an acute hospital setting. The outcomes of the evaluation were exudate management, maceration reduction, atraumatic application and removal, non-adherence and patient experience. The evaluation highlights not only an overall positive improvement in exudate management and maceration reduction, non-adherence, atraumatic application and removal but also emphasises the importance of a positive patient experience in the wound-care journey.