Evidence for Person-centred Care in Chronic Wound Care

Project period: 2019–2020

EWMA video explainer: What is person-centred wound care?

This EWMA video explains the concept of person-centred wound care and illustrates how you can start implementing this approach already today in your clinical practice.

EWMA document on Evidence for Person-centred care in Chronic Wound Care

Background

Chronic wounds affect an estimated 2.21 per 1000 population. They are a significant source of morbidity and affect individuals physically, psychologically, socially and financially. Person-centered care is one approach to improve patient outcomes in wound care as it values patients' perspectives, beliefs and autonomy and considers the person as a whole within the cultural context in which care is provided.

Aim

We aimed to review the evidence on the use of person-centered care (PCC) in chronic wound care management and provide recommendations for practice and future research.

Method
Using a systematic review methodology, we searched six databases for full-text papers from 2009–2019 published in peer-reviewed journals with no limits on language

Access the document

Supplementary material: tables on the articles included in the document

Results
Eighteen articles on studies involving 3149 patients from nine countries were identified. Studies were conducted under three broad intervention categories: healthcare professional education (n=1); patient education (n=14) and telemedicine (n=3). Studies were equally focused on prevention and treatment of chronic wounds. Significant improvements were reported in patient knowledge, pain and self-care behaviours. Only two studies evaluated the impact on wound healing and one study estimated the cost of implementing person-centered care.

Conclusions
The evidence base to support PCC in wound management is developing and based on our review has shown improved outcomes in areas of pressure ulcer prevention, patient satisfaction, patient knowledge and quality of life, but clinical outcomes such as wound healing were less well explored. Further research with more objective outcome measures are required.

Author Group

Georgina Gethin (Editor), Ireland

Patricia Price, United Kingdom

Sebastian Probst, Switzerland

Jan Stryja, Czech Republic

Natalia Christiansen, Denmark

Project sponsors

This project is supported by an unrestricted grant from:

Do you want to learn more about person-centred care?

You can listen to the EWMA podcast on Person-centred care. Who is in charge of the wound? Host: Julie Jordan O'Brien, guest: Georgina Gethin