Pressure injuries in elderly with acute myocardial infarction

To assess pressure injury (PI) incidence among patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in an intensive coronary care unit (ICCU) and to detect the impact of specific risk factors on the development of PI in this clinical setting.

Prospective cohort study in ICCU setting. Patients admitted for AMI: patients mean age 67.5±11.5 years (n=165). Norton Scale, Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), demographic, clinical and biochemical data collected at the time of ICCU admission have been tested in a logistic model to assess the odds ratios (ORs) of PI risk development. The jackknifed area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and the decision curve analysis have been employed to assess the additive predictive value of a factor.

Twenty-seven (16.3%) patients developed PIs. An increased PI risk was associated with advanced age (OR =2.5 every 10-year increase; 95% CI =1.1-5.7), while probability of PI development was reduced in patients with higher left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (OR =0.4 every 5% increase; 95% CI =0.24-0.66), MNA score (OR =0.65 every unit change; 95% CI =0.44-0.95) and Norton Scale score (OR =0.7 every unit change; 95% CI =0.57-0.88). The AUC and the decision curve analysis showed that LVEF inclusion improved the discrimination power and the clinical net benefit of the final model.

Age, LVEF, Norton Scale and MNA scores have a strong and independent clinical value as predictors of in-hospital PI development in patients with AMI. This finding has the potential to improve the clinical management of patients admitted in ICCU.