Risk Factors for Pressure Injury Development Among Critical Care Patients

Area of Science:

• Critical care medicine
• Nursing research
• Patient safety

Background:

• Pressure injuries (PIs) are a significant concern in critical care.
• Effective PI prevention programs rely on accurate risk factor identification.
• Formalized risk assessment is a cornerstone of PI prevention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify major risk factors for pressure injuries in the critical care population.
• To highlight the importance of formalized PI risk assessment.
• To explore future directions in PI risk assessment using data analytics.

Main Methods:

• Review of empirical literature on PI risk factors in critical care.
• Identification of commonly cited risk factors in existing research.

Main Results:

• Key PI risk factors in critical care include age, diabetes, hypotension, immobility, prolonged ICU stay, mechanical ventilation, and vasopressor use.
• Formalized PI risk assessment is crucial for effective prevention programs.

Conclusions:

• Accurate identification of PI risk factors is the primary step in prevention.
• Future use of electronic medical record data analytics may enable earlier, targeted PI prevention.
• Advanced analytics could improve understanding of unavoidable PI risk factors.