The Burden of Pressure Ulcers in Spain

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Author(s): 
J. Javier Soldevilla Agreda, MA, RN; Joan Enric Torra i Bou, RN; John Posnett; PhD Jose Verdu Soriano, PhD, MScN, BScN, RN, (Hons);Lorena San Miguel, MSc, BSc; Manuel Mayan Santos, PhD

Disclosure: Joan Enric Torra i Bou, Lorena San Miguel, and John Posnett are paid employees of Smith & Nephew.

Today it is well known that pressure ulcers are an important problem for all healthcare systems.1–3 However, there are still few published studies in the literature aimed at measuring the economic impact of this condition. A portion of these studies are based on general assumptions.4
Quantifying the cost of treating pressure ulcers provides information that helps highlight the magnitude of the problem. It also offers an incentive for clinicians, researchers, and managers to evaluate their clinical and nursing interventions, ensuring the most effective means are used to prevent and heal pressure damage. This type of analysis can also assist in identifying parameters, which have the greatest impact on overall costs.
This study was undertaken taking into account the importance of having reliable data to measure the size of the problem, and combined publicly available Spanish epidemiology data with national costs to produce cost estimates for treating patients with pressure ulcers throughout Spain.

Methods

References: 

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