Incontinence and hospital-acquired pressure injury: A multi-center cross-sectional study

Background: Incontinence (INC), whether urinary, fecal or double incontinence, is known as one associated factor for the development of pressure injuries (PI)^1,2. Several descriptive studies are available that focus on INC and PI. However, the exploration of the association between INC and hospital-acquired PI through correlational analysis is missing. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the association between INC and hospital-acquired PI through regression analysis.

Methods: The 2017 Austrian version of the ‘Prevalence Measurement of Care Problems’ (including also the Care Dependency Scale), an annually repeated cross-sectional survey, was used. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression were used for secondary data analysis.

Results: Thirty-seven Austrian hospitals including 209 wards participated. Of all patients available at the measurement day (N=4074), 2955 took part in the study, mainly from internal and surgical wards. The majority was female, on average 66 years old and completely care-independent. About every fifth person was INC (20.1%) and the hospital-acquired PI prevalence was 1.3%. Of those persons who were INC, 3.9% had a hospital-acquired PI (23/595). We could not identify a statistically significant association between INC and hospital-acquired PIs. However, we could identify a statistically significant association between the degree of care dependency and spinal cord injuries with hospital-acquired PI.

Discussion/Conclusion: Our results indicate no association between INC and hospital-acquired PIs. One explanation could be the small sample, with only 600 persons suffering from INC and only 38 from a hospital-acquired PI. Further research on a larger data set on an international level is required.