Abstract
Background: Many dressings are available for local wound care, which can cause variability in dressing choice among physicians and nurses. This hampers optimum dressing, selection. The level of agreement among physicians and nurses regarding their choice of gauze-based and occlusive wound dressings for surgical patients with open wounds is compared to selections made by an expert panel. Methods: A panel of wound experts judged 18 representative photos of open wounds in surgical patients to decide which gauze-based and which occlusive dressings were best for each wound. Next, 79 physicians and 63 nurses from the Department of Surgery judged the some wounds. Group kappa values (kappa) were calculated to assess inter- and intra-observer agreement among physicians and nurses and their agreement with the expert panel choices. Results: Agreement among physicians was poor. The most agreement was found regarding their choice of gauze-based dressings (kappa = 0.14; 95% confidence interval: 0.08-0.21). Agreement among nurses, as well as the comparison with the expert panel, showed similarly poor results. Conclusion: Disagreement exists among professionals regarding the choice of occlusive and gauze-based wound dressings, which hampers a uniform approach in local wound care. Stronger evidence and educational programs regarding the selection of available dressings are advocated
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 286-293 |
| Journal | Wounds |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| Publication status | Published - 2006 |