Prevalence of pressure ulcers in long term care: A global review.

To identify the prevalence and incidence of pressure ulcers in people with long term conditions resident in care homes or nursing homes
. We followed the PRISMA guideline for systematic reviews however due to funding constraints we do not claim this review to be systematic but it is a narrative review informed by PRISMA. We searched Embase, Medline and CINHAL for observational studies reporting incidence or prevalence data. Data reported relevant head to toe examination of the pressure ulcer in residence of care or nursing homes. Internat and external validity of the included studies were assessed using the checklist devised by Hoy et al (2012). Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria an included in the study. Some studies gave a full breakdown by grade, some only gave overall figures and some excluded grade I pressure ulcers. However within those constraints certain patterns are clear. Prevalence rates varied from 3.4% to 32.4% and large differences in prevalence in different countries was not explained by methodological differences. While some countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the USA had robust data some countries such as the UK had none. Pressure ulcers are a common problem in long term care. However there are substantial differences between countries and many countries have no published data.