Improving Pressure Ulcer Staging Accuracy Through a Nursing Student Experiential Intervention.

BACKGROUND

Staging of pressure ulcers (PUs) is often inaccurate. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a student-focused intervention to improve PU staging accuracy in nursing students.

METHOD: Nursing students from two universities were included. The control group (n = 103) received a standard lecture about PUs; the intervention group (n = 55) completed a PU module, participated in Skin Day at a local hospital, and received the standard lecture. All students completed a PU staging tool to determine their staging accuracy. Scores were compared using analysis of variance.

RESULTS

Students in the intervention group were significantly more accurate in PU staging, especially stage II PUs and suspected deep tissue injury. Stage III PUs were the most difficult to stage for all students.

CONCLUSION

Skin Day provided students with hands-on clinical experience, which assisted them in becoming better at staging PUs. This type of experiential opportunity should be considered for all students, as accurate staging is necessary for best practice adherence. [J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(5):266-270.].