Impact assessment of a skin injury prevention protocol on the clinical outcomes of critical care unit patients

Introduction: considered one of the main adverse events related to health care, pressure injury may result from the long stay of hospitalization of patients in Intensive Care Units. Objective: to evaluate the impact of the implementation of a protocol for the prevention of pressure injuries in intensive care unit patients. Method: this is a randomized controlled trial study. We analyzed 139 patients admitted to the intensive care unit from February to November 2021. After analysis of the inclusion criteria: age equal to or greater than 18 years; admission time in critical care units < 24h; not having pressure injury at the time of the first evaluation and presenting a score on the Cubbin & Jackson Revised = 29 points. Ninety-two patients were equally distributed between control group (CG) and intervention group (GI), the intervention group received care directed by actions that make up the protocol for the prevention of pressure injury, which strictly fulfilled 10 days of evaluation. Results: a significant difference was observed in relation to the primary outcome (19.6% vs. 56.5%, p<0.001) i.e., patients in the control group had a higher incidence of pressure injury when compared to patients treated with the protocol proposed for this study. In addition, among the patients who developed the lesion, none of these lesions progressed to stage 3. There was a difference between the groups in relation to the median length of stay in the intensive care unit (17.5 days vs. 20 days, p=0.020) and in the length of hospital stay (23 days vs. 30.5 days, p=0.021), both higher in the control group. Conclusion: the use of the pressure injury prevention protocol was associated with the reduction of this outcome.