clinical focus
Sore spot for students
Students in the dark on aspects
of pressure injury prevention.
Kim Usher interviewed by Dallas Bastian
N
ursing students aren’t aware
of some strategies to prevent
pressure injuries but feel it falls
to them to help out, a survey has found.
Researchers from the University of
New England (UNE) quizzed undergraduate
nursing students across seven Australian
universities to find out how much they
know about pressure injury prevention,
testing aspects like nutrition, observation
and risk assessment.
Less than a quarter of the students in the
study scored 60 per cent or over, with most
hovering around a pass mark.
Most students knew that improving
nutrition can reduce the risk of pressure
injuries, with the nutrition category
returning the highest scores, while the
lowest overall score was achieved on the
topic of preventive measures to reduce
the amount of pressure/shear.
Students struggled with questions
on posture, pressure-relieving devices
and mattresses.
“Most students did not know how to
position patients to minimise contact
pressure between the seat and the
body (68.5 per cent), when a patient is
sliding down in a chair, how to minimise
the amount of pressure at the seat
(67.9 per cent) and how to use a visco-
elastic foam mattress, in conjunction
28 agedcareinsite.com.au
with repositioning, for patients at
risk of developing a pressure injury
(66.4 per cent),” the study said.
Despite the lower scores in some
categories, most students agree that
pressure injury prevention should be
a priority and that they personally feel
responsible if pressure injuries develop
in their patients.
“The students in this study agreed they
had a role in pressure injury prevention and
that it should be a priority. The greatest
concern about pressure injury prevention
attitudes is personal competency beliefs,”
the study said.
It added that the findings highlight
the need for a comprehensive approach
to increase students’ knowledge in this
area and for students to have adequate
experiences in clinical units with a high
focus on pressure injury prevention.
The authors also called on educators,
registered nurses and nurse supervisors
to involve students in pressure injury
prevention.
Aged Care Insite spoke with lead author
Professor Kim Usher, head of the School of
Health at UNE, to discuss the ways nurses
can help students improve their approach
to pressure injuries and what changes are
needed in training organisations.
ACI: What are your concerns about the
lack of pressure injury knowledge?
KU: Pressure injuries are an indicator of
quality care, so we should be aiming to
give the best quality of care to patients.
And pressure injuries are something
that cause a lot of concern and distress
to the patient. They can also lead to
a number of complications and can
extend hospitalisation, so they add a lot
of costs to our healthcare system. In
some countries, the costs have become
so great that they’ve started to penalise
hospitals that report high numbers of
pressure injuries.
What were some of the important
aspects of pressure injury prevention
that students weren’t fully across?
For me, the biggest concern is that
a lot of students in this study lacked
knowledge about prevention. They also
lacked the ability to accurately assess the
levels of pressure injuries.
On the flip side, in which areas did you
see high scores?
Well, importantly, students did show
that they had some knowledge areas
covered: nutrition, risk assessment,
and the aetiology and development of
pressure injuries.
Also, students scored quite high on
attitudes, which is similar to findings in
other countries. That means Australian
nursing students have a good attitude
towards pressure injury prevention.
They see it as part of their role.
Unfortunately, students scored low
on confidence. They tended not to feel
confident that they were able to reduce
pressure injuries or that they knew the
strategies to do so.
How can pressure