Chronic wounds: treatments and relevant educational strategies

Chronic wounds became a major public health problem leading to very high economic costs. They have a devastating impact upon patients, caregivers and the society in general, being a major source of patient morbidity. Even though all the advances, the role of antimicrobial agents is not clear.

We searched Medline/PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, using the terms chronic wounds, patient morbidity, topic treatments, systemic treatments and education. Our focused was on the articles published since 2000.

The rationale use of anti-infectious agents is crucial particularly in a context of a global emergence of microbial resistance. In this situation higher interest has been created in the use of topical therapies to manage wound infection. Concerning the utilization of systemic antibiotics, they are used as last resort when topical treatments are unsuccessful to the healing process. Data from the literature recognized scarcities in the wound care knowledge in several healthcare professionals.

Clinical assessment of patient wound is crucial to select the best wound treatment. In this context educational strategies are urgent to meet the needs of different professional groups and levels of expertise to maximize effectiveness.