Community-Acquired Pressure Injuries in the Acute Care Setting

To explore the population of patients with a community-acquired pressure injury (CAPI) admitted to an acute care facility from December 2018 to December 2019. The specific aims of the study were to identify the (1) number of patients admitted with a CAPI, (2) type and frequency of pressure injury (PI), (3) location of residence prior to admission, (4) general demographics of the patient, and (5) condition of the PI at discharge.

In this retrospective descriptive study, participants were identified and pulled from the hospital database at a 260-bed level 2 trauma center. Patients' charts were identified by searching for nursing documentation of CAPIs. The exclusion criterion was charts that did not include verification of PI by a certified wound nurse. Data were pulled from the electronic medical record, verified by the certified wound nurse, and reviewed for participant demographics and implementation of PI prevention and treatment.

Over the course of the year, 88 patients had a CAPI. The majority lived at home (86.4%), were male (68.2%), and had stage 2 PIs (37%) on the sacrum (30.7%) or coccyx (51.1%). All participants had multiple comorbidities. Few PIs were from postacute care settings (11%) or another acute care hospital (1.1%). On average, patients had more than one PI. All patients had decreased or impaired mobility and mean body mass index of 26.38 ± 7.23 kg/m2. No one developed a new PI while in the acute care setting, and many of the CAPIs either healed (69.3%) or stabilized (22.7%).

Providers have an opportunity to make a difference in the prevalence of PIs occurring outside of acute and postacute care settings.