Skin tear prevalence in an Australian acute care hospital: A 10‐year analysis

• Published in: International wound journal Vol. 19; no. 6; pp. 1418 - 1427
• Main Authors: Miles, Sandra J., Fulbrook, Paul, Williams, Damian M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.10.2022; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: acute care; Audits; Cross-sectional studies; Elder care; hospital‐acquired; Patients; prevalence; Skin; skin tears; wound management; Queensland Australia; Australia; skin tears; prevalence; hospital-acquired; wound management; acute care
• ISSN: 1742-4801; 1742-481X
• DOI: 10.1111/iwj.13735

Hospital‐acquired skin tear prevalence is under‐reported; thus, the aim of this study was to analyse skin tear point prevalence and characteristics in a tertiary acute care hospital in Queensland, Australia, over a 10‐year period. All consenting adult inpatients received a full skin inspection and skin tear category, site, cause, treatment, and whether it was documented as hospital‐ or community‐acquired were recorded. Eleven prevalence audits were analysed with a total sample of 3626 patients. An overall pooled prevalence of 8.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] 7.5‐10.4) with an associated hospital‐acquired pooled prevalence of 5.5% (95% CI 4.5‐6.7) was found. In total, 616 skin tears were reported, of which 374 (60.7%) were hospital‐acquired. Over a third of patients (38.7%) had multiple skin tears and most patients (84.8%) with at least one skin tear were aged ≥70 years. The largest proportion of skin tears (40.1%) was those with no skin flap. Of those documented, most were caused by falls or collisions, suggesting combined skin tear and falls prevention strategies may be effective. Over a decade, there was a downward trend in hospital‐acquired skin tear, which is encouraging. Skin tear prevalence is recommended as a measure of care quality with an emphasis on good quality documentation.