Perioperative Pressure Injuries: A Descriptive Study of Patient Characteristics

Area of Science:

• Medical Research
• Surgical Outcomes
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Perioperative settings present unique challenges for pressure injury (PI) development.
• Understanding PI incidence and risk factors is crucial for patient safety.
• This study focuses on adult, inpatient surgical patients with hospital stays of at least 3 days.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the incidence of perioperative pressure injury (PPI).
• To identify baseline characteristics of patients who develop PPI.
• To explore risk factors associated with PPI in the perioperative period.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive retrospective study utilizing electronic medical record data.
• Involved a cohort of 55,270 patients from an academic health care system.
• Statistical analyses included Fisher exact test, chi-squared tests, and t-tests to compare patient characteristics.

Main Results:

• The overall incidence of perioperative pressure injury (PPI) was 0.5%.
• Cardiovascular surgery accounted for 65.7% of PPI cases.
• Older patients with higher comorbidity scores, including congestive heart failure, diabetes, renal disease, and severe liver disease, showed increased risk. No differences were found in race, BMI, or tobacco use.

Conclusions:

• Cardiovascular surgery is a significant risk factor for PPI in perioperative patients.
• Demographic characteristics like race are insufficient for accurately identifying PPI risk due to limitations in skin tone measurement.
• Further research into accurate risk stratification for PPI is warranted.