A STUDY ON THE PREVENTION OF PRESSURE ULCERS - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRANSCUTANEOUS PO2 IN THE SACRAL REGION AND PREDICTIVE FACTORS FOR PRESSURE ULCER DEVELOPMENT

We looked at the significance of the relationship between various pred ictive factors for pressure ulcer development and transcutaneous PO2 i n the sacral region before and after the application of pressure in th at region in 40 subjects with pressure ulcer predictive factors and 10 healthy subjects. An ex post facto research design was used with the recovery time of the TcPO2 reading obtained prior to application of pr essure as the dependent variable. The potential predictive factors tes ted included the subject's age, interface pressure in the sacral regio n, blood pressure, serum protein, hemoglobin, and the Braden Scale sco re. Multiple regression analyses were performed to test the relationsh ip between TcPO2 recovery time and the pressure ulcer predictive facto rs. Findings indicated that the factors which influenced TcPO2 recover y time were, in order of significance, age, diastolic blood pressure, and the Braden Scale score.