Quality of life related to clinical aspects in people with chronic wound.

Maicon Henrique Lentsck,Maria Regiane Trincaus,Tatiane Baratieri,Aline Padilha Mattei,Carine Teles Sangaleti Miyahara

doi:10.1590/s1980-220x2017004003384

Maicon Henrique Lentsck, Maria Regiane Trincaus + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s1980-220x2017004003384

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Abstract

To evaluate the quality of life of people with chronic wounds and to compare this index with clinical parameters. A cross-sectional study conducted between July 2014 and February 2015, evaluating people with chronic wounds in outpatient care during a nursing consultation, in the city of Guarapuava, Paraná. Quality of life was assessed by the Quality of Life Index - wounds version. Data were analyzed using the Mann Whitney test and T-test. 53 people participated. The mean quality of life score was 22.65±3.08. The most significant scores in the analyzes were the family domain (27.71±2.94) with the highest mean score, and the health domain (18.91±4.58) had the lowest. Pain in walking (p=0.031) and using pain medication (p=0.002) presented a significant relation with overall score. There was a significant difference between the groups for the items pain at rest (p=0.022), pain in moving (p=0.006), using pain medication (p<0.001) and presence of infection (p=0.004), in the rest item (p=0.015) in the socioeconomic domain, and type of wound (p=0.05) and rest (p=0.041) in the psychological domain. The overall Quality of Life Index and by domains was classified as good and very good, where the family domain was better evaluated to the deriment of the health domain due to the clinical parameter of pain.

Highlights

Quality of life (QoL) can be intensely altered by the presence of a chronic wound, since the chronification process of the lesion triggers a series of problems that affects the individual across several spheres – physical, psychological and/or social[1]
This information is crucial to guide care actions aimed at this problem, there is a shortage of studies on chronic wounds and their prevalence according to a literature review published in English[3], corroborating that this lack of studies on the subject is restricted to Brazil
There was a predominance of lesions with venous etiology (64.2%), with a wound (54.7%) and lesion recurrence after treatment in 56.6% of the interviewees.The time of the current wound was less than 5 years in 66.0% of the cases, and the lesion size was less than 4 cm2 (24.2%), without edema (88.7%), according to Table 2

Summary

Introduction

Quality of life (QoL) can be intensely altered by the presence of a chronic wound, since the chronification process of the lesion triggers a series of problems that affects the individual across several spheres – physical, psychological and/or social[1]. Chronic wounds are understood as those that do not heal within the expected time interval of up to 3 months, which remain stuck in one of the stages of the healing process[2], and do not have a known prevalence rate in Brazil based on national studies. It is noted that these rates have been increasing due to the increase in the aging population and the expanding factors that favor its incidence, among which metabolic and vascular diseases are highlighted[4] In this scenario, local and regional studies which present data on the prevalence and etiology of chronic wounds help to outline this information. The authors emphasize that chronic illness associated to factors that admittedly make them difficult to treat evidences the possible negative implications in the lives of the older adults evaluated

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