Incoming Nursing Excellence

Research article

The prevalence of pain at pressure areas and pressure ulcers in hospitalised patients

Michelle Briggs^1*, Michelle Collinson², Lyn Wilson², Carly Rivers³, Elizabeth McGinnis⁴,Carol Dealey⁵, Julia Brown², Susanne Coleman², Nikki Stubbs⁶, Rebecca Stevenson², E Andrea Nelson⁷ and Jane Nixon²

• *Corresponding author: Michelle Briggs m.i.briggs@leedsmet.ac.uk

Author Affiliations

¹Centre for Pain Research, Queens Square House, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds LS1 3HE, UK

²Clinical Trials Research Unit, Leeds Institute of Clinical Trials Research, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

³Rick Hansen Institute, 6400-818 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9, Canada

⁴Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, Leeds, UK, Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK

⁵Clinical Research Unit, Old Nuclear Medicine, Research & Development - University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre, 1st Floor Pharmacy Building, Room 3, Birmingham B15 2TH, UK

⁶Tissue Viability, St Mary’s Hospital, Greenhill Road, Armley LS12 3QE, UK

⁷School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, Room 1.25, Baines Wing, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

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BMC Nursing 2013, 12:19 doi:10.1186/1472-6955-12-19

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6955/12/19

Received:	9 January 2013
Accepted:	3 July 2013
Published:	31 July 2013

© 2013 Briggs et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

Patients with pressure ulcers (PUs) report that pain is their most distressing symptom, but there are few PU pain prevalence studies. We sought to estimate the prevalence of unattributed pressure area related pain (UPAR pain) which was defined as pain, soreness or discomfort reported by patients, on an “at risk” or PU skin site, reported at a patient level.

Methods

We undertook pain prevalence surveys in 2 large UK teaching hospital NHS Trusts (6 hospitals) and a district general hospital NHS Trust (3 hospitals) during their routine annual PU prevalence audits. The hospitals provide secondary and tertiary care beds in acute and elective surgery, trauma and orthopaedics, burns, medicine, elderly medicine, oncology and rehabilitation. Anonymised individual patient data were recorded by the ward nurse and PU prevalence team. The analysis of this prevalence survey included data summaries; no inferential statistical testing was planned or undertaken. Percentages were calculated using the total number of patients from the relevant population as the denominator (i.e. including all patients with missing data for that variable).

Results

A total of 3,397 patients in 9 acute hospitals were included in routine PU prevalence audits and, of these, 2010 (59.2%) patients participated in the pain prevalence study. UPAR pain prevalence was 16.3% (327/2010). 1769 patients had no PUs and of these 223 patients reported UPAR pain, a prevalence of 12.6%. Of the 241 people with pressure ulcers, 104 patients reported pain, a UPAR pain prevalence of 43.2% (104/241).

Conclusion

One in six people in acute hospitals experience UPAR pain on ‘at risk’ or PU skin sites; one in every 8 people without PUs and, more than 2 out of every five people with PUs. The results provide a clear indication that all patients should be asked if they have pain at pressure areas even when they do not have a PU.

Keywords: 

Pain; Pressure ulcers; Risk assessment; Prevalence