Wound assessment tools and nurses' needs: an evaluation study (2025)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to ascertain how well different wound assessment tools meet the needs of nurses in carrying out general wound assessment and whether current tools are fit for purpose. The methodology employed was evaluation research. In order to conduct the evaluation, a literature review was undertaken to identify the criteria of an optimal wound assessment tool which would meet nurses' needs. Several freely available wound assessment tools were selected based on predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria and an audit tool was developed to evaluate the selected tools based on how well they met the criteria of the optimal wound assessment tool. The results provide a measure of how well the selected wound assessment tools meet the criteria of the optimal wound assessment tool. No tool was identified which fulfilled all the criteria, but two (the Applied Wound Management tool and the National Wound Assessment Form) met the most criteria of the optimal tool and were therefore considered to best meet nurses' needs in wound assessment. The study provides a mechanism for the appraisal of wound assessment tools using a set of optimal criteria which could aid practitioners in their search for the best wound assessment tool.

Introduction

The challenging nature of wound healing has led to calls for practitioners worldwide to adopt a holistic and systematic approach to wound care 1, 2, 3. This should involve initial and ongoing wound assessments 2, 4 and has several purposes. Specifically, it provides baseline information against which progress can be monitored 5, enables goal setting 2 and the correct selection of dressings 6, 7. Poor assessment can lead to inappropriate wound management 3. It is therefore crucial that assessment is carried out according to the highest standards: if assessment is not performed correctly, subsequent wound care will suffer resulting in delayed healing and/or serious complications 4. Wound assessment is therefore central to good wound management and should be an integral part of wound care practice.

According to Turner 8, nurses should ask three questions following their assessment of a wound. First, ‘at what stage is this wound?’ Second, ‘what do I want this wound to do next?’ Third, ‘how can I achieve this objective without damaging healthy tissue?’ Hence, it is important for nurses to be able to accurately establish the current condition of the wound, evaluate whether it is improving or deteriorating, and decide upon the most suitable treatment. Although this may initially appear relatively straightforward, in practice this is often not the case and there is recognition that in order to achieve optimal wound care, nurses require more support 9.

To compound the situation, it has been suggested that organisations are failing to provide nurses with clear care guidelines and referral pathways to follow and that a lack of agreed standards and support from healthcare providers is contributing to poor wound care 9. Wound assessment tools (WATs) have been developed to assist nurses in managing wounds, and many tools have been developed, but there is currently a lack of consensus as to which of these should be adopted to provide a consistent pathway for improved wound assessment.

In the UK, it is argued that getting the wound care right will result in improved patient care and contribute towards meeting National Health Service (NHS) targets, both financially and in terms of quality of care 9, 10. Delays in wound healing require more nursing time and additional resources. Surveys have shown that in the UK between 30–50% of hospital inpatients have wounds 11. Additionally, there are many patients requiring wound care in the community setting. Thus wound care has significant financial implications, both in terms of direct costs and staffing resources. Pressure ulcer care alone is estimated to cost around £1.2 billion a year 12, while surgical site infections are estimated to cost between £814 and £6626 per patient 13. These costs are likely to rise as the number of older people in the population continues to increase. Current economic pressures within the NHS, including the need to make £20 billion in efficiency savings by 2015 14, means that treatments must be cost effective. Improvements in wound care which lead to faster wound healing, a reduction in complications and shorter patient stay will improve quality of care and result in reduced costs.

There are several possible reasons why nurses may find wound assessment and wound care difficult. First, wound healing is an incredibly complex process which challenges even experts 3. This particularly applies to chronic wounds in which the normal healing trajectory is not followed 15. Tissue viability nurses have a wealth of experience and knowledge in dealing with all types of wounds; however the majority of general nurses do not have this level of expertise 9. Ashton and Price 16 found that nurses lack knowledge of wound management and feel unprepared to carry out wound care, particularly when newly qualified. According to Timmons 12, this is partly attributable to poor education. Haram et al.17 argue that inadequate teaching of wound care in undergraduate preregistration education leads to nurses adopting the practices that are prevalent in local clinical areas. Evidence‐based practice requires that nursing practice is informed by up‐to‐date research 18, 19. However, learning wound care ‘on the job’ is only likely to perpetuate practice based on ritual and personal preference.

Increased focus on wound management in nurse education might improve nurses' theoretical understanding of wound healing, but according to Benner's theory of novice and expert 20, knowledge takes time to develop. Thus, even if undergraduate preregistration education was improved, inexperienced nurses may still lack confidence and standards of wound assessment and management may not be optimal. By providing a framework for inexperienced nurses to work from, WATs could lead to improvements in the standards of wound care that nurses are able to provide. However, such tools are only worthwhile if they meet the needs of the nurses using them, and result in enhanced wound care 21.

A literature search revealed that the majority of publications concerning wound care comprise discussion or opinion papers rather than empirical papers. 22, 23, 24. King argues that many research studies which have been carried out in the area of wound care are methodologically weak 25 and a systematic review found that many tools developed to measure changes in wound healing were inadequate in respect of reliability and validity 26. There is a dearth of studies evaluating whether WATs meet the needs of nurses in practice, and no studies were found which investigated whether the use of WATs actually improved wound care in practice. In the UK, we still do not know which tools nurses are using (if any), nor can it be said which tool or tools would be most beneficial for nurses to incorporate into their wound care practice.

The need for evidence‐based practice exists as clearly in wound management as in other areas of nursing practice. Traditionally evidence has been sought from randomised controlled trials (RCTs), however, within the field of wound care, this type of evidence has been found to be lacking. According to Leaper 19, no systematic reviews have been carried out in the area of wound assessment and this has led to a reliance on expert opinion for guidance. Leaper acknowledges that while expert opinion has a place, wherever possible best practice should be based on scientifically produced and evaluated evidence.

Purpose and study design

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether selected WATs meet the needs of nurses in carrying out wound assessment and whether current tools are fit for that purpose. We wanted to improve clinical practice and the quality of patient care by identifying best practice in relation to wound assessment. To do this, the international nursing literature was reviewed to determine what nurses require of a WAT and what components the ideal WAT should contain. Characteristics of an optimal WAT were identified from the literature: these characteristics were then compared against those contained in existing WATs. Those WATs which met a greater number of the optimal criteria were considered more useful and fit for purpose than WATs which met few of the optimal criteria.

Methodology and methods

We employed an action evaluation methodology. Evaluation research is undertaken in order to solve an identified problem 27. It ‘seeks to address practical problems and make judgements of merit or worth so as to provide recommendations and outcomes that may inform future activities’ 28. Evaluation is a practical research methodology that differs from pure scientific research; the latter aims to contribute to knowledge whereas evaluation seeks to enable immediate practical decision making. Action evaluation 29 is a simple and quick form of evaluation which is carried out for one user group (nurses in this instance), using their value criteria (WAT criteria developed from nursing literature), to enable them to make informed decisions (which WAT should be used). Action evaluation is not an in‐depth or widely generalisable evaluation. A complex evaluation was not considered appropriate for this study because the aim was simply to determine whether nurses' needs for wound assessment, as indicated in the current literature, are being met by selected WATs. To achieve this, the following aim and objectives were established.

Aim

The aim was to ascertain whether selected readily available WATs currently in existence meet the needs of nurses in carrying out general wound assessment, and whether current tools are fit for purpose.

Objectives

1. To identify from existing literature what nurses require from a WAT.

2. To establish criteria for an optimal WAT.

3. To ascertain to what extent currently available tools fulfil these criteria.

4. To determine which readily available tool is best fit for purpose.

5. To identify where further research is needed to assist nurses in providing best practice wound assessment and management.

Based on the above, the question asked was:

Do selected WATs meet the needs of nurses in carrying out best practice wound assessment?

Criteria selection for the optimal WAT

The criteria against which the WATs were evaluated were developed from the international literature on wound assessment. A search of electronic databases was carried out (EMBASE 1980–present and MEDLINE 1996–present) using the search terms ‘wound’ and ‘assessment’. Literature identified in the initial search was used to generate further search terms. These were: ‘wound healing’; ‘nurses needs for wound assessment’; ‘nurses use of WATs’; ‘nurse education and wound assessment’; ‘wound healing and exudate’; ‘wound healing and tissue type’; ‘wound assessment and dressings’; ‘wound management’.

Search results were analysed by both authors independently to identify common themes and factors which were relevant to promoting nurses' needs for systematic wound assessment. Where criteria could not be agreed, a wound specialist was consulted before making a final decision. Criteria for inclusion in the optimal WAT were identified as follows:

• Details and characteristics of the wound—In order to achieve holistic wound management, it is important for nurses to have access to basic background information on the wound, including details of site, duration, and if known aetiology 30. This information helps nurses to understand the type of wound they are dealing with and to begin to formulate a plan of care. The initial wound assessment provides a baseline for subsequent assessments 31.

• Patient details—At the most basic level, patient details are needed for identification purposes to match the patient to the wound assessment that has been done. Wound assessment is frequently talked about as a holistic assessment 30. In order for this to be true, wound assessment must consider factors about the patient's condition other than the wound. Any comorbidities or patient factors which could affect healing should be recorded so that these can be taken into account when planning care 32.

• Wound measurement—This helps nurses to identify whether a wound is healing or not 22, 33. A reduction in wound size of more than 40% in the first 3 weeks indicates a wound is healing 34. Wound measurement is therefore a useful component of a WAT. Wound measurement carried out by nurses in their routine practice will almost inevitably lack precision. However, basic measurements should be able to identify a trend of healing or non-healing. Wounds which fail to decrease in size are at risk of not healing and may require further investigation or intervention.

• Tissue type—This is recognised as an indicator of stage of healing 33. Its inclusion in a WAT allows nurses to identify what stage of healing the wound is at in order to make decisions about treatment aims. Tissue types are usually described as necrotic, sloughy, granulating and epithelising 35.

• Exudate—This is produced as a part of normal wound healing and is responsible for maintaining a moist wound bed which is considered necessary for healing. The volume and viscosity of exudate can indicate progress or deterioration in wound healing 36. While it is normal for wounds to produce haemoserous exudate during the healing process, an increase in exudate volume or viscosity may indicate infection or impending dehiscence.

• Surrounding skin—Assessing the skin surrounding a wound forms an integral part of wound assessment. Surrounding tissue may provide the first indication of impending further tissue damage 1. Induration or cellulitis may indicate infection. Maceration of surrounding skin suggests wound exudate is not being managed effectively 37.

• Pain—Assessment of pain is important for several reasons. First, pain is distressing for the patient and must be addressed to promote patient comfort 35. Second, an increase in pain may indicate infection 38. Third, pain may delay healing 30. Pain assessment is particularly important when dealing with chronic wounds.

• Signs of infection—All wounds are contaminated with microorganisms to varying degrees. Infection occurs at the point when multiplying microorganisms can no longer be controlled by the body's immune system 39. It is important for any WAT to include an assessment of signs of infection. Infection delays wound healing, and without recognition and appropriate treatment may have serious consequences for the patient 39. NICE reports that at least 5% of patients undergoing surgery develop a surgical site infection and that over a third of postoperative deaths are related to surgical site infections 13. Wound infections can range from spontaneously resolving wound discharge to life‐threatening postoperative complications; they are associated with morbidity and extended hospital stay in addition to increased financial costs 13.

• Documentation—This is necessary for recording and monitoring wound progress and for communication between professionals. Documentation is an important part of modern nursing practice. Nurses have a professional responsibility to maintain accurate records of care and to be able to justify their actions. Documents such as, ‘Record keeping—guidance for nurses and midwives’ 40 outline the expectation that nursing records should be clear, accurate and factual and should include details of assessments and reviews, so that information can be effectively communicated to colleagues. In an increasingly litigious society, nursing records are the first source of evidence investigated if a complaint is made 3 and are considered legal documents.

• Communication and continuity of care—A WAT should enable the nurse to establish how well the wound has progressed since it was last assessed, or whether in fact the wound has become static or deteriorated as this information will inform treatment decisions 41. A good WAT should make this information easily available to nurses encountering a wound for the first time. By facilitating continuity of care, the WAT will help nurses provide optimum wound management at all times.

• Ease of use—In order for a WAT to be useful, it must be user friendly and quick and easy to use 37. A balance needs to be struck between including all the necessary information and producing a tool which is too detailed and which deters nurses from using it. A well‐designed tool will however encourage nurses to document wound assessment more frequently 42.

• Setting of goals for healing and planning care—Wound assessment is the first step in identifying appropriate treatment objectives in wound management 21. The next step is to use the information gathered during wound assessment to set these objectives and start planning for how to achieve them.

• Monitoring of the healing process—The aim of treating most wounds is to heal the wound 43. For wounds which are not progressing, the nurse needs to identify possible barriers to healing and how these may be overcome 15.

• Guiding practice—Many nurses, particularly inexperienced nurses, struggle when it comes to wound assessment. WATs have the potential to guide nurses both through their assessment, and also in their decision making and care planning which follows assessment. In the ‘Best practice statement: optimising wound care’ 9, the authors propose the use of a care pathway for the patient with a wound. The pathway leads the clinician from assessment and diagnosis, to setting objectives and provision of care. A clinical pathway for wound care is also advocated by Barr and Cuzzell 43. In light of evidence suggesting nurses do not currently receive the necessary level of support in providing wound care, it is suggested that a WAT could have the potential to lead nurses through this pathway.

WAT selection

The WATs to be evaluated were selected from tools readily available for nurses to use in their practice. A second search was carried out to find published and unpublished WATs. This included a search of the following electronic databases; MEDLINE (1996–present) and EMBASE (1980–present).

Results

Discussion

The results of the action evaluation provide a measure of how well the included WATs performed against criteria of the optimal WAT. The results identify which WATs performed well and which performed poorly. This can be used to help nurses decide which WATs to use in practice: WATs which score higher on the audit are proposed to better meet the needs of nurses in wound assessment. The WATs with the highest proportion of desirable criteria were found to be the AWM and the NWAF. These two WATs met 83% and 80% respectively of the criteria for the optimal WAT. On the basis of this evaluation, it can be recommended that either of these WATs be introduced into practice, if not already in use.

In addition to identifying which WATs perform well, the process reveals which WATs performed poorly against the evaluation criteria. As far as we know, this is the first study to compare WATs in this way. No other studies identified in the literature review have compared a range of WATs for their suitability in helping nurses deliver high standards of wound assessment. Some studies have assessed the reliability of particular tools 26, 44, 45, but it is important to distinguish between a tool being reliable and it being useful or fit for purpose. This may be the first study to critically compare and evaluate a selected number of readily available WATS and to determine whether they meet the needs of nurses. The results could be used to assist nurses when selecting a WAT for use in their area of practice. Importantly, if nurses are using a WAT that has not been included in this study, the audit tool described could be used to evaluate it for its suitability in their area of practice.

Although the study results demonstrate that some WATs performed much better than others, no included WAT met all of the criteria of the optimal WAT. Further analysis of the individual WATs was carried out to determine how each WAT performed against each of the criteria and this information is available on request from the authors. While the higher ranking WATs met more criteria indicators overall, some of these were deficient in certain areas by comparison with WATs that were generally ranked lower. For example, the NWAF which was ranked second did not score as well on ‘monitoring healing’ as the Sessing scale which came last. Most WATs scored poorly on ‘monitoring healing’, yet the Sessing scale which performed poorly across most criteria met 50% of the ‘monitoring healing’ criteria indicators.

The extent to which each of the criteria was met by the WATs ranged from 86% for ‘tissue type’ to 7% for ‘guiding practice’: the latter was met by only two WATs, namely the NWAF which was ranked second and the East Kent Hospitals Wound Assessment Chart which was ranked seventh. The NWAF scored against the ‘guiding practice’ criteria indicators because it suggests treatment objectives and lists possible dressings to select, while the East Kent Hospitals Wound Assessment Chart contains a link to a wound care formulary for dressing selection.

These examples show that overall rank does not necessarily predict performance against a particular criterion. This raises the question of whether overall performance is the most important consideration, and whether there are some criteria which are more important than others. The criteria for the optimal WAT were selected on the basis that they were included in the literature as being of equal importance in wound assessment, but they can be divided into two groups: basic criteria and advanced criteria. Basic criteria are the more obvious components of a WAT: easy to record and easy to assess in an audit. They represent the more apparent, objective aspects of wound assessment, for example, wound details, patient details, measurement, tissue type, exudate, surrounding skin, pain and infection. The advanced criteria comprise the more subjective components of a WAT and are often more difficult to assess in an audit. They represent the more abstract aspects of wound assessment, such as documentation, communication, ease of use, setting goals/planning care, monitoring healing and guiding practice. With the exception of ‘ease of use’ and ‘documentation’, the advanced criteria were not well represented in the WATs in this study. The reason for this is uncertain. It may be that these criteria have not previously been identified as important in wound assessment. We would argue that these criteria are equally important as the basic criteria which are more commonly included in WATs. It is the advanced criteria that add value to the wound assessment process by making it more useful and meaningful.

Apart from the WATs included in this study there appear to be many more in existence, a number of which are local unpublished tools used in individual areas of practice. This evaluation provides an important step in identifying and meeting nurses' needs in wound assessment, but more work is required. The ‘Best practice statement’ 9 states that ‘wound management in the United Kingdom and Ireland is generally not organised or delivered in a uniform fashion against measureable standards of care and with clear referral pathways’. Nurses have been left to care for patients with wounds without national guidelines and consequently it is not known what the standard of wound assessment is. Neither do we know what nurses feel as their needs in carrying out wound assessment. In this evaluation nurses' needs were identified from the literature review. However, there has not been a study which specifically asks nurses what they require in a WAT, how useful they find current WATs, and where they see scope for improvement. Neither is it known which WATs nurses are actually using in practice as there has been no research into this 3. In order to develop standardised treatment pathways for wound management, research is needed to identify what is currently happening in practice, which WATs are being used and how well they are meeting nurses' needs. Despite the existence of dedicated wound journals, we currently do not possess basic information on what nurses require from WATs.

The lack of research to evaluate WATs in relation to nurses' needs means that there is little previous work with which to compare this study. Fletcher recognised that there is inconsistency in wound assessment practice and that documentation of care is often poor. She suggests that a standardised WAT could improve care 46. Fletcher examined existing WATs in order to determine which factors to include in the development of a new WAT that could improve practice, culminating in the production of the NWAF which was ranked second in our evaluation. However, despite creating a high scoring tool, the methodology of Fletcher's paper could be criticised in several areas. The NWAF was devised through discussion of previous WATs by a panel of experts and whilst the experts involved are likely to have possessed a wealth of experience in relation to wound assessment, no empirical work was carried out to support the contents of the tool.

In this action evaluation, the AWM scored highest out of all the WATs and is therefore recommended for use in clinical practice. Most of the tools included in this study, including the NWAF, consist of a WAT only, but the AWM WAT differs in that it is one part of a larger body of work under the name Applied Wound Management. The finding that the AWM WAT meets nurses needs, as they are currently understood to be, provides support for this work. The Applied Wound Management framework was developed as part of the theory of wound bed preparation (WBP) in the management of chronic wounds healing by secondary intention. It seeks to incorporate the principles of debridement, wound bioburden control, and exudate management 47 and attempts to create the right conditions in a wound to allow healing to take place 48. Applied Wound Management seeks to improve wound care by facilitating a systematic approach to the complex issue of wound assessment and management 4. It enables the implementation of evidence based practice via the practical application of theory to everyday practice 49.

The AWM scored well across the majority of the criteria of the optimal WAT, but was not considered to meet the criteria indicators for guiding practice since it did not include any prompts of treatment objectives or links to sources of guidance for dressing selection. However, the WAT is just one of several AWM clinical tools: in addition there is a pocket guide, a wall chart, and a computer database 50. The wall chart suggests treatment objectives and treatment options for wounds at each stage of healing. If the wall chart is used in conjunction with the WAT, the ability of AWM to meet nurses' needs in wound assessment is further strengthened.

It has been argued that nurses, particularly inexperienced nurses, would benefit from a WAT which is capable of supporting them in carrying out wound assessment and that AWM is one such adjunct to decision making 51. This is supported by Padmore, whose report found that AWM was easy to use for inexperienced staff and acted as an aide memoir for experienced nurses 52.

Many nurses lack knowledge of wound management and wound assessment, and it has been suggested that a WAT could provide support for nurses in this area. This action evaluation supports the use of either the NWAF or AWM as a tool to facilitate wound assessment. Although both WATs scored well, the implementation of the NWAF would be more straightforward than the AWM. The NWAF is a standalone tool which is intuitive to use without any additional training. The AWM however, is part of a wider framework. It is necessary for practitioners to understand the WBP framework in order to use the AWM correctly. Padmore found the theory behind AWM simple to teach to students at various levels 52. However, time must be invested in teaching students to ensure they are using AWM to full effect. This raises the issue of whether education on AWM should occur as part of preregistration training or as the continual professional development of qualified staff. Studies have found that postregistration training for nurses does improve wound care practice 53. Timmins provided training on AWM to nurses working on elderly care wards and implemented the AWM WAT and dressing choice chart 4. It was found that before training only 20% of the nurses selected the correct dressings whereas after Timmins' intervention, this rose to 73%. This methodologically sound study shows not only that nurses' baseline wound management is often poor, but that it can be significantly improved with appropriate intervention. Timmins concludes that a structured WAT can help improve nurses' practice, but that this requires adequate educational support. Although this will inevitably involve financial investment, it is worth bearing in mind that the expenditure on dressings fell from £44,580 over the four months before the trial, to £35,816 during the four months of the trial.

Conclusions and recommendations

We have shown that there are WATs in existence which meet many of the needs of nurses in carrying out wound assessment and that no tool has been identified which meets all the requirements of nurses. Those needs which remain unfulfilled are possibly some of the most important, in particular the need to be able to monitor healing and to guide nurses towards best practice. In order to maximise wound healing, nurses need to be able not just to record certain parameters in their wound assessment, but also to know what to do next. This is not to say that recording wound size, exudate, tissue type etc. is not important in wound assessment, but that the point of recording this is to give nurses information about the wound which they can use to plan care. This brings us back to the three questions that follow wound assessment: (i) at what stage is this wound? (ii) what do I want this wound to do next? (iii) how can I achieve this objective without damaging healthy tissue? 8 Wound assessment itself therefore is not the goal; rather it is the means to the end 21, which is to achieve optimal wound management. While much research is being carried out into developing sophisticated dressings, designed to interact with the wound bed and accelerate wound healing 54, these expensive dressings will be wasted if they are used incorrectly as a result of poor wound assessment and management.

This study has shown that of 14 selected WATs, the AWM and NWAF best meet nurses' needs in carrying out wound assessment. It has also revealed that more research is needed to establish what is currently happening in practice, and what nurses believe their needs to be. We have suggested that a good WAT can help guide nurses towards best practice in wound management. However, a WAT can never be a substitute for clinical knowledge and expertise 51. It can provide a framework to structure assessment and an adjunct to decision making, but in order to provide the best quality wound care possible, nurses require educational support and clear guidelines for practice.

References