The Use of Scales for Risk Assessment in Pressure Ulcer on Admission of High Complexity Customer in the ICU as one of Nursing Care´s Instruments - Systematic Review of Literature.

Abstract

The UP's constitute an important problem of health, particularly in ICUs. The nursing is loaded from the start of "Modern Nursing" responsibility or "blame" for the development of PU in hospitalized clients. In last years, this responsibility has been divided between the other members of the health team to be identified to the problem multicausality. The study aimed to examine articles, published in national and international scientific journals, about the use of risk-assessment scales for pressure ulcer on admission of customer as one of the nursing care instruments. This is a systematic review of literature with a qualitative approach, which used the electronic databases MEDLINE, LILACS, BDENF, SCIELO, OBJN and the Nursing School Library in Aurora Afonso Costa, using the time limitation period 2003-2008. In the study 11 items were selected and analyzed. It was concluded that the scales have been widely used as tools for risk assessment to predict the risk to develop PU. Based on the results of the analyzed studies, the use of the Braden scale has increased reliability (sensitivity and specificity) in predicting risk for development of UP. The implementation of protocols or action plans is another effective strategy in UP prevention. We believe that this review may provide subsidies, like informations so that the nurses assess their clinical practice, education and research related to prevention of UP in critics patients hospitalized providing greater autonomy in clinical and administrative decisions referents to the nursing care.