Prevalence of Wounds IN Hospitalizad PATIENTS – Prelimary DATA FROM Public Hospitals IN the STATE of Amazonas, Brazil

Wounds have different etiologies and the most common among hospitalized patients is pressure ulcers. There are very few studies on enterostomal therapy performed in the state of Amazonas.  The objective of this study was to characterize the hospitalized population, determine the prevalence of acute and chronic wounds of any etiology, and the association between both the sociodemographic and clinical variables and the occurrence of wounds. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study designed to test correlations. The aim of the study is to collect data from all public general hospitals in the cities of Manaus and Coari, AM, Brazil, but only preliminary results from two hospitals are presented here. The eligibility criteria were: patients aged 18 year and older, who were hospitalized for more than 24 hours, and agreed to participate in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients or their representatives. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Amazon State University (UEA), under the process number 049/09. Data were collected by the researchers on only one day. A questionnaire was used to assess the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the patients. Ten persons participated on a pretrial study. The extended Fisher’s test, Pearson’s Linear Correlation Coefficient and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality were used for statistical analysis. The confidence interval was set at 95%. Ninety-five persons were eligible to participate in this study of which 77 were hospitalized in Manaus. The mean age was 46.52 (SD, 18.44; range 18-90) years, 60% were male, 19.5% were smokers, 50.5% were hospitalized for surgical procedures, 44.21% did not have any chronic diseases, but 28.42% of the patients with chronic diseases had arterial hypertension. The mean hospital-length of stay was 10.14 (SD, 9.98) days; 36% of the patients had been hospitalized for less than 5 days. Of the total sample, 14.74% had wounds of the following etiologies: pressure ulcers (n=8, 57.14%), surgical wound dehiscence (n=4, 28.57%), and neuropathic diabetic ulcer (n=2, 14.20%). The average number of wounds per patient was 2.21. Only patients at the hospital in Manaus had pressure ulcers; most of the cases (65.2%) developed during hospitalization. With regard to pressure ulcer stage, 75% were stage II. Prevalence of pressure ulcers was 8.4%. Regarding to associated factors, length of stay (p = 0.004, r = 0.297), malnutrition (p=0.029; r=-0.287) and impaired mobility (p=0.038; r=-0.213) contributed to the development of wounds in the hospitalized patients. The sample consisted predominantly of adults, males, with no chronic diseases and hospitalized for surgical procedures. Pressure ulcer was the most frequent type of wound; all pressure ulcers developed during hospitalization. Malnutrition, loss of mobility, and hospital-length of stay were the main factors contributing to the development of wounds, however the correlations were small. The prevalence of wounds found in this study may not reflect the actual situation in the health services because the day data were collected bed occupancy was low.