The purpose of this study was to compare the incidence of hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and placed in a prone position manually or using a specialty bed designed to facilitate prone positioning. A secondary aim was to compare mortality rates between these groups. Retrospective review of electronic medical records. The sample comprised 160 patients with ARDS managed by prone positioning. Their mean age was 61.08 years (SD = 12.73); 58% (n = 96) were male. The study setting was a 355-bed community hospital in the Western United States (Stockton, California). Data were collected from July 2019 to January 2021. Data from electronic medical records were retrospectively searched for the development of pressure injuries, mortality, hospital length of stay, oxygenation status when placed in a prone position, and the presence of a COVID-19 infection. A majority of patients with ARDS were manually placed in a prone position (n = 106; 64.2%), and 54 of these patients (50.1%) were placed using a specialty care bed. Slightly more than half (n = 81; 50.1%) developed HAPIs. Chi-square analyses showed no association with the incidence of HAPIs using manual prone positioning versus the specialty bed (P = .9567). Analysis found no difference in HAPI occurrences between those with COVID-19 and patients without a coronavirus infection (P = .8462). Deep-tissue pressure injuries were the most common type of pressure injury. More patients (n = 85; 80.19%) who were manually placed in a prone position died compared to 58.18% of patients (n = 32) positioned using the specialty bed (P = .003). No differences in HAPI rates were found when placing patients manually in a prone position versus positioning using a specialty bed designed for this purpose.
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