Pattern of Presentation in a Community Outpatient Wound Clinic

The management of patients with cutaneous wounds entails both inpatient and outpatient care. There is scarcity of dedicated community wound clinics in Nigeria to guarantee appropriate management of especially difficult-to-heal wounds on outpatient basis. The aim of the study was to describe the pattern of presentation of patients with wounds at a community outpatient wound clinic (COWC).

Consecutive patients with wounds who presented to a COWC in the city of Ibadan from October 2015 to December 2021 were included. Descriptive analysis was done using IBM^® SPSS^® Statistics 21.

Two hundred and forty-four patients with wounds presented at the wound clinic. There was a slight female preponderance of 52%. Almost one-tenth of the patients were 80 years old and above. Post-traumatic wounds were the commonest type of wounds accounting for 15.3% of the patients seen. This was followed by diabetic wounds (14.9%) and haemoglobinopathic (sickle cell) wounds (13.2%). In patients with leg wounds who presented during the period, diabetic wounds (24.4%) was the commonest aetiology, haemoglobinopathic leg wounds accounted for 23% of patients, and post-traumatic leg wounds were seen in 20% of the patients.

COWC is an option to managing complex wounds from various aetiology. Best practices in wound care will result in more favourable outcome in difficult-to- heal wounds and early referrals from wound clinics for limb salvaging procedures are additional benefits.