The Association Between Pressure Ulcer Development And Patient Comorbidities In Varied Care Settings: A Review Of The Literature

Pressure ulcers can be described as localized injury to the skin which can develop in the patients placed in various types of care setting. The comorbidities, or underlying diseases of the patients, are thought to be strong risk factors for the development of pressure ulcers. The purpose of this paper is to review the previous literature investigating the association between patient comorbidities and pressure ulcer development. The author classified the literature into five categories by the type of care setting, namely, the nursing home, hospital, perioperative, rehabilitation, and home settings, and summarized the study results for each. The author found a large dispersion in the results according to design and sample size, even within the same settings. Nonetheless, half or more of the studies found that diabetes mellitus had a close association with pressure ulcer development in all of the settings while cardiac, renal, and respiratory diseases were also found to be associated with many of the settings. The author surmises that recognition of such comorbidities could serve as an important step towards improving pressure ulcer prevention.