Prevalence of wounds and patient characteristics in an Australian community setting: a retrospective cohort study

To estimate the community prevalence of acute and chronic wounds in a defined Australian population, and to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of affected individuals and their wounds.

Retrospective, population-based cohort study using electronic health records for all patients with wounds seen by a community nursing service during 2018.

Community nursing service in the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia.

A total of 3632 individuals (1652 females and 1980 males) from a population of 327 736 were treated for 8470 unique wounds. Over 65% of patients resided in areas classified as most socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Primary outcomes were the prevalence of acute and chronic wounds and the distribution of wound types. Secondary outcomes included patient demographics and socioeconomic status.

We estimated an annual age-sex-standardised prevalence of any wound of 8.34 per 1000 (95% CI 7.56 to 9.13); 3.27 per 1000 (95% CI 3.05 to 3.48) for acute wounds and 4.64 per 1000 (95% CI 4.38 to 4.90) for chronic wounds. The average point prevalence over the year for chronic wounds was 3.81 per 1000 (95% CI 3.57 to 4.04) which is higher than many previous estimates elsewhere. Prevalence of any wound type increased with age and area-level deprivation and was much higher for males than females. There was no observable seasonal variation in wound prevalence.

We have derived robust estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of people receiving community-based wound care in one district of Australia. We found important differences in the frequency and patterns of wounds compared with previous studies elsewhere in the world (notably the UK and Europe). More research is needed to better understand the epidemiology of acute and chronic wounds in Australia to enable more targeted prevention and effective treatment.